12 DA's Of Christmas
by Blablover5
Summary: Twelve one shot stories that lead up to Christmas featuring various Dragon Age companions from over all the games. There will be laughter, heart strings plucked, smiles had, and maybe a few tears. Pretty typical Satinalia gathering, really. I'll be posting a new one each day. I hope you like them.
1. Chapter 1

You knew it was cold in Kirkwall when even the various gangs, cut-purses, and lowlifes couldn't be bothered to step outside. Though, some of that might be due to Hawke's nightly activities. Varric tugged the coat tighter as another blast of unseemly cold air whistled through the rickety houses of Lowtown. Only the hang of the moon lit the frost coated cobbles. While he gritted through it, his fellow companion was less than gracious.

"Templar's unused nutsack, it's freezing out here!"

Varric shrugged, "That's what you get for not wearing any pants, Rivaini."

Eyes sharper than an obsidian arrow tried to cut through him, but Varric snuggled deeper into the off-brand coat and smiled widely at the woman dressed in little more than underwear. He wondered sometimes, if that was Isabela's outwear, what made up the more underpart of her attire? But he figured asking would end in one of two situations both of which could lead to his demise. Best to leave it to questions.

She glared at the dwarf a bit longer before rubbing her hands like mad together to try and start a fire between them. "I'd rather be caught dead than in whatever monstrosity you threw on."

"Gets any colder and there's a good chance of that, Rivaini. I'm not in the mood to drag you to Blondie's and see if he's willing to wave his magic fingers to warm you up."

"Hm," she tipped her head back to the stars, a smile rising on her face, "I'd take a mug of hot, spiced brandy, a bed with the thickest wool blankets, and...three of the Rose's more burly men."

Varric snorted, "Only three?"

"Times are tight," Isabela shrugged, "but even if I lose a toe, I'd never wear whatever _that_ is." She jerked her hand at Varric's coat while sneering, "Red as blood, though with Hawke around it may have been dyed in such a fashion."

"What's wrong with a little crimson?" Varric smiled. He heard a bit of rustling down the cold alley and bent over to check on the wooden sleigh nestled between them.

"Nothing, though you do test its limits. The real eyesore is that trim. White? And in fur no less? You're like a walking target begging to be stuffed full of arrows."

"Good thing I brought a pirate along to protect me," Varric grinned at her. The noises drifted on, and he lay the tarp flat over the rather priceless bag nestled upon the sleigh.

Isabela snorted, her breath transforming to smoke before it dissipated, "Protect? Shit, I'm more likely to get hit and...you little sneak. That's why I'm out in this god awful night, isn't it? Arrow fodder. Why the void isn't Hawke here anyway? Seems like something up his alley."

"Said he was busy, snow golems, or icicle witches or...you know Hawke," Varric shrugged. Isabela was moving into icicle witch territory herself, though he honestly didn't expect Rivaini to come with. Didn't seem to be her kind of mission, but she offered.

"Hmph." A low growl broke from the shadows, but Varric didn't reach for Bianca. He knew this growl the way an owner does his mabari's bark. White hair slid into the waning light of the moon and shook a moment. "I could have been doing something more productive with my time?"

Rivaini's eyes lit up a moment and she placed a hand on her hip. "For you it'd be flitting about your mansion brooding."

"I do not..." Fenris sneered, as if he did anything else.

"Eyes dark as your soul, lips turned into a deep pout, chest trembling as an icicle melts, sending drop after frozen drop curling against your heaving..."

Varric snapped a finger near Isabela's face trying to get her to focus. "Rivaini, come on, save it for later. We don't have much time until dawn and there's a ton left to get through."

Pursing her lips, Isabela clearly worked through her fantasy a bit longer before swinging her head over at the elf and winking. Fenris growled because Fenris was capable of two settings. Hawke swore he saw the broody elf smile and even laugh, but three years in and Varric didn't buy it. It was probably gas.

Hauling up the rope around the sleigh, Varric took off, his two assistants trailing behind. "Where'd you leave it this time?" Varric asked, his eyes hunting over the streets. This was the not nice part of Kirkwall, but not as bad as the alienage. He was saving that bit for later when hopefully Rivaini was so drunk she didn't care, and Fenris in such a foul mood he'd do anything to end it all.

"On the floor," Fenris growled.

"The floor? Where someone's liable to trip over it?" Rivaini put the screws to him, no doubt as much to enflame the beast as possible. It was doubtful she was worried about the outcome for some strangers.

Fenris threw his hands open and snarled, "Where else can I leave it? I'm doing this blind!"

Pausing, Varric glanced up at a small flat sequestered in between two slightly larger ones. Still, he reached into the pocket of the coat he won in a game of Wicked Grace and read through the list. Best to check twice lest he screw it all up. "Here we are, Arlon." Fishing into the nondescript burlap bag, Varric hauled up a small sack that jangled as he placed it into Fenris' magic fist.

The elf weighed the gold pieces a moment as if he had intentions to run off with the stash before sighing. "If the floor's not acceptable, where should I put it?" he asked Varric first, before turning to glare at Isabela.

Shrugging, the pirate stuck out her hip, "Their shoes."

"The...how would I even find their shoes?" he gasped before falling to a grumbling silence. For as standoffish as the elf was, and he made dungeons seem cozy, he took this seriously.

Stepping up to the locked, but flimsy door, Fenris' body lit up white enough to blind an owl. As his hand did whatever magical shit it could, he reached inside through the front door and felt around for some place to stash the gift of gold. Rivaini watched a moment, her eyes clearly drinking in Fenris and no doubt drawing some interesting conclusions.

As it seemed to be taking the elf some time to find the shoes, she turned to the dwarf in charge of the operation, "I don't get it, Varric."

"I keep telling you Rivaini, there is no secret to keeping my chest hair so soft and pliable. Just good blood."

"Not that," she rolled her eyes, before blatantly staring down the gap between the red coat. "This. Why in Andraste's tits are we out here on a freezing cold night hiding gold in people's houses? Now sneaking gold out of people's homes I can get behind."

"Because it's Satinalia," Varric explained as he parted his hands wide.

"That's a calendar, not an answer."

"All the names on here owe money to people you really don't want to be in deep with. So I figure I'll help them out a little, a small windfall to ease the pressure off before someone comes for their kneecaps or thumbs."

Rivaini stared hard at the list when Fenris stepped back towards the sleigh, his arm no longer glowing. "He means him," the elf spat, "everyone on that list owes money to him."

"Wait," Isabela waved her hands through the air, "you're helping people pay back loans to you? By sneaking money from out of nowhere into their houses, in the middle of the night, during winter?"

Fenris gestured at her logic, "I have tried to explain the inefficiency to him for years."

"Years?" that caught Rivaini. "You two...just what do you two get up to when the rest of us crawl on home from the Hanged Man?"

"You have a home to crawl to?" Fenris asked, his black caterpillars for eyebrows rising in surprise. Isabela scoffed a moment at the logic in his statement, but she wasn't about to budge a leather boot until Varric gave her some answers.

Rolling up the list, he stuffed it safe into the coat pocket and sighed, "People, they don't like to have their pride questioned. Even when it's looking like some giant guy named Tiny's gonna show up at your door. Asking for help is painful. So, a little extra glint in a shoe, or dropped onto the breakfast table come morning helps to alleviate their fears. This way they get to keep both their pride and their kneecaps."

Varric shrugged into his coat at the simple tradition he started somewhere around the time he took over loans from Sharky. It'd been a lot harder before Fenris rammed into their life through a guy's chest cavity. Before, Varric would lock-pick every house, doable but time consuming. There was one year when he'd tried hurling the bags of coins down the chimney, quite a few went up in flames with the breakfast cooking.

"It's a small gift from the funny little man in the red coat," Varric said with a laugh. Isabela and Fenris glanced at each other and narrowed their eyes.

"Not seeing why we need to be here," Rivaini said slowly, her eyes already dancing with visions of warm mead back by the fire of the Hanged Man.

"I could never accomplish this without my elf helper," Varric smiled at Fenris who growled twice over at that, "or my...besotted pirate." At that Rivaini laughed. "It's tradition. Come on, we have another fifteen houses to get to before that blighted sun rises."

Bundling the sleigh's rope in his mitten covered hands, Varric took off as quick as he could. The elf dressed in pitch black armor who glowed brighter than a star trudged on. "What if I place them on the mantle?"

"You can reach through a fireplace?" The pirate woman with a heart of gold, because she stole it from behind someone's back, asked.

Fenris shrugged, "Perhaps."

"All I know is when this is over I am due four prostitutes from the Blooming Rose."

"Three mugs of mulled wine," the elf added.

"Two hot baths," Rivaini mused.

"And a game of cards where the dwarf takes both your shirts!" Varric crowed, spinning back to face them.

Fenris scowled at the thought while Rivaini licked her lips. "You don't need to beat me at cards to get my shirt off. You just have to ask nicely," she finished by winking at the elf again, who was already digging for the next sack of gold. His little helpers hopped to, Rivaini trying to assist Fenris reach towards some down-on-his-luck bastard's mantle. The people would wake confused by the gold, but rush it right back to his coffers by way of whatever burly gang they went through to get it. Perhaps not the most straightforward of systems but it worked. Kinda like this city.

Above them, circling through the heavy stars, a fog drifted around the moon. It was the never ending smoke out of the foundry, but with the air nearly crystalline cold Varric could pretend for a moment that it was snow washing the filthy city clean. Happy Satinalia, Kirkwall.


	2. Chapter 2

The Vigil was quiet. Nathaniel despised the rare times when the training grounds fell fallow and it seemed as if all the other Wardens were off on missions. The pounding silence reminded him far too much of his childhood - the few rosy memories forever drown in blood courtesy of his father. He'd been thinking often of those days, before the blight, before he was sent off to the Free Marches, before his father destroyed the family in one fell swoop. Probably due to the encroaching holiday. The Warden Commander gave him leave to visit with his sister and brother-in-law if he so wished in Amaranthine, but Nathaniel feared he might be needed here.

Perhaps he simply wished to be on hand in the event he was required. Still earning his keep, trying to prove to someone that he was as worthy as his elder brother. Nathaniel frowned, perhaps he should check on the Warden Commander. See as to why the Keep was so quiet in the middle of the afternoon.

He moved to rise from the chair, the freshly stringed bow slung back over his shoulder, when the front door burst open. Riding astride a massive log was Oghren, wood chips impaled inside his beard. A team of men and women struggled to drag the great...it could only be called a tree, but even that felt too small a word.

The entire thing was easily twenty feet tall, and the log itself nearly six feet wide. Struck dumb, Nathaniel glanced up at the dwarf trying to scurry off the thing. Seeing as he was no doubt well sotted, Oghren struggled a minute before falling hard on his head.

"'S fine. It's all right. I got it," the dwarf called out, despite no one going to his rescue. After a years worth of his antics they were all used to it.

"What in the blessed Maker's name is that?" Nathaniel called out. He jabbed a hand at the tree, afraid the dwarf might be unaware of it, while the helpers all huffed in a breath.

Oghren spun back a moment to stare at the thing, squinted deep to make certain, and laughed, "It's a log. You said you wanted one for that...thing you do."

"The yule fire, yes," Nathaniel nodded, "but...this is enormous. It's not a log, it's an entire tree."

"Blessed creators!" a shrill voice cut through the Keep causing both Nathaniel and Oghren to simultaneously groan. Spinning on his heels, he watched Velanna stomp towards them, her hair looking particularly spiky today. No doubt she woke in a confrontational mood and it was only going to grow more sour.

"Did you..." she narrowed her venom on the dwarf who was clearly staring at her décolletage without fear of reprisal, "cut this down?"

Oghren grinned, "Yep."

"You butchered a...a beautiful tree. A gift of nature murdered by your filthy, rock encrusted-"

"Whoa whoa," Oghren threw both hands up before Velanna set him on fire. He burped once, swiped at the mouth under the beard hair, and said, "Don't get your ears in a knot, princess. This one was dead when I found it. Mercy killing."

Velanna huffed at the new information, but turned back to stare at the log. "It is...was a beautiful tree."

"Trees come, trees go," Oghren threw out by way of philosophy. "What's it for again?"

Both dwarf and elf turned to the only remaining human in the Wardens at the moment. Nathaniel stuck his hands behind his back while staring up at the tree, "For Satinalia we find a great log, one that can burn the entire day. On which is cooked all the feast foods, mulled wine warmed by its flames, and at night we'd...the children would snuggle around the embers and listen to stories of Andraste."

"Really?" Oghren snorted, "I thought it was for something better like, like something dirty." His eyebrows waggled while he jabbed an elbow into Velanna's midsection. Her glare could wither all life, except for the dwarf who was immune.

"I dare not inquire as to what passes through your pitiful brain, child of the stone. But he is right on one account, that human ritual of yours. It is a waste of a tree."

"What would you Dalish do?" Nathaniel fell back to an easy stance, his arms folded.

"We would not have cut it down in the first place."

"I mean as a holiday celebration. You must have some, I assume."

"We do!" she spat, her hackles already up and raising higher. Glaring up at the tree, she said, "We will sit around the campfire, trading handmade gifts and telling tales of our good fortune for the year."

Under her visceral scorn, Nathaniel heard the twang of a melancholy chord, which called to him. He felt it in his soul as well. Even though he stood in the very rooms where he cut his teeth while learning to walk, he too could never go home. "Do you miss it?" he asked, his voice soft. Velanna's piercing eyes darted over to him, angry at her appearing wounded, but when he did not attack her outright she softened a moment.

"Shit," Oghren snorted, "sounds worse than the damn humans. At least they have mead. What do we do with the log?"

Glaring at the dwarf who ruined the moment, Nathaniel tried to think, "Typically it would be placed into the great hearth, but there is no chance that would fit."

"Fireplace," Oghren formed a circle with his fingers and smiled, "got it." Yanking off the great axe upon his back, he scurried up onto the log and began to chop. A wonderful way to dull his blade but he seemed void sent on such an endeavor. Who was Nathaniel to question it.

As wood splintered into shavings all over the great hall floor, Nathaniel had to ask, "Master dwarf, what do your people do to celebrate the winter holiday?"

"Well, little prince," Oghren smiled wide at the jab before slicing deeper into the log, "first off we don't do that winter stuff. We got one season, normal, and it's much better than freezing cold or boiling hot like you do on the surface."

His diatribe paused as the dwarf leapt to the ground and began attacking the log anew. It was a testament to his skill how quickly he seemed to be scissoring it in half. Nathaniel asked the Commander once why Oghren was kept around. Then he witnessed the dwarf in battle, felling four darkspawn on his own while he was piss his pants drunk. He ceased questioning her orders after that.

"See," Oghren picked back up even as his form vanished behind the log, "a dwarf celebration...a proper holiday involves three things - booze, women, and something to hit. We got the booze," his shaggy head drifted to the great mead barrels in the back already filled to bursting for the oncoming celebration. "The women is..." he waved a hand to Velanna who looked as if she intended to bite it off, "yeah...you know what I mean there, little prince. As for the shit to hit, well..."

Dancing back, Oghren slotted his axe in place, gripped onto both ends of the log, and pulled. He strained, his face turning bright red under the piles of hair and... Nathaniel suddenly had a horrifying realization there was a great chance that was Oghren's orgasm face. Wonderful thought to pop in there. Delightful.

A great crack reverberated through the no longer silent hall as the log fell in twain. "There ya go," Oghren gasped, "a log for your story fire, or whatever. I need to go sit." He waddled around a moment before tumbling to the ground gasping for breath.

"Ser?" a few of the local workers turned to Nathaniel. Some he remembered from when he was a boy, which made it rather awkward when he was nothing more than a scoundrel come to kill the Hero of Ferelden. In time, and proving himself with the Wardens, having people look to him grew to be less constraining.

Rubbing a hand against his neck, Nathaniel gestured towards the hearth. "Let us drop it onto the fire. A log this great is likely to burn for several days."

"Means more time for story fucking!" Oghren called out, a flask already on his person. It was likely he bathed with one.

Nathaniel hefted up the log along with two of the other soldiers. To his surprise, Velanna grabbed onto the back. At his look she blushed and glanced away, "If it has to die, it should be seen off by proper hands and not some filthy human's."

He did not make mention of it, but Nathaniel snickered a moment to himself as the four hauled the giant log deeper into the main hall. It was madness to think the dwarf somehow felled this by his lonesome. Even with help Nathaniel's arms were waning, the half a tree wishing to remain on the ground where it grew.

When he bumped into the fireplace's stones he silently prayed thanks to Andraste. As a team, they worked the log onto the punier flames. Its massive weight splintered apart the burning logs sending embers flying into the air, but it was down. That was all that mattered.

While they both wiped dust off their palms, Nathaniel stirred around the bit of kindling still clinging to life. It would probably take some time for this log to catch but when it did, it wouldn't stop for days. He expected Velanna to scamper off to wherever she spent her time, but the elf remained, seeming to be entranced by the fire.

"I was excised, abandoned by my people," Velanna rubbed her hands up and down her shoulders as if she was cold, "I do not wish to miss any of our celebrations."

He watched the cold-as-frost woman a moment before tipping his head back to the sky, "My mother's meat pies. She'd make one for each of us every Satinalia and I adored eating it. No one else made it right in all of thedas. She was a cold, heartless woman, happy to cut apart anyone who go in her way. Yet," Nathaniel closed his eyes tight as he felt the warm clotted goodies sliding down his throat, "I taste it on my tongue whenever the winds grow cold."

His skin prickled at the memory and he turned to find Velanna staring long and hard at him. Her lips parted as if she wanted to ask him something, but Nathaniel beat her to it, "It is not easy to run from memories, even if the good ones become infested with the bad."

A wave of emotions washed over her face, from sneering, to stricken, back to...he could not guess. She was a complicated woman, infuriating for certain, but like a beautiful wasp. It was certain to sting you, perhaps even kill you, but no one could deny the lovely pattern to its wings whenever it took flight.

Velanna blinked a moment, her lips hanging slack. She stepped closer to Nathaniel, her face washed in the glow of the firelight. "I don't..."

Something scampered over his boot. He tried to shake it off, but a sound thundered through the hall - like a million tiny feet scrabbling over stone. Whipping his head down, terror claimed Nathaniel's tongue as he watched four fat, black insects dash out of the fireplace. They scattered towards freedom, but met with his shoe. He feared the nature loving elf might object, but she swung her staff around to smash one.

"What is that?" Nathaniel cried.

"Ugh, rot beetles," Velanna sneered, finishing off the last of the four that must have smuggled in on the log. "Filthy things that are attracted to all things decomposing. Leave horrible round bruises where they bite you."

"Lovely," he muttered. At least the problem was taken care of and...

Hissing, far more powerful than any grasslands in the height of summer, arose out of the fireplace. Just as Nathaniel was about to shout an order, an unending multitude of rot beetles erupted out of the burning log. Enraged, they shot for freedom, ready to pinch and bite whatever dared to get in their way. Nathaniel scattered back, his feet and hands pounding into anything he could. Velanna did the same, cursing in elvish with every swing. He went to take a quick glance at the other log, only to watch to his horror as more of the monsters came scuttling free.

"All right!" Oghren shouted. Yanking his great war axe up, he leapt high into the air. "Now it's a party!"


	3. Chapter 3

She tried everywhere: the undercroft, the rookery, the stinky mage's quarters, the stinkier templar ones, even had a peek under ol' jackboot's desk. He put up a right fuss about her ass getting in the way, but no luck. Where in the tittering nugs was she?

Hopping up and down the stairs towards the not dungeon bits of Skyhold, Sera paused at a mighty statue perched in the middle of a big space. So much space one could march an army through it. Shit, they kinda did. Still, weird there weren't tables or fighting rings, or even some mad blood mage running through the stone room cackling. All it held was the statue, glaring at her. Puffing out her cheeks, Sera extended her arms wide as if her sides both gained an extra fifty pounds.

With deliberate stomps, she slammed her way towards the statue as if it cared, as if it'd attack.

She paused a moment, her life flashing back. After the shit she'd seen while under the Inquisitor's thumb there was a very good chance the statue might attack. Her stance locked up tight and she dug a finger into her bottom eyelid to extend it. "I'm watching you, rock," she cursed at the statue, when a string of bangs and very adorable swears erupted from the place where food came.

 _That had to be it!_

Bundling up her...well, not skirts. Never skirts. Those tended to catch on things that weren't worth stealing. Still, she grabbed onto her hips and dashed towards the sound. Hurling open the door, she watched as a tiny head of brown hair cursed a few more times.

"Nug droplets," she huffed, a wooden spoon jabbing into a bowl. The poor girl tried to turn it, but the spoon seemed unmovable. Instead of the ash of the forge, or the dirt smudged off her enchanting box, it was white dust that covered her pretty hair.

Sera dropped her hands wide and shouted, "Widdle!"

The spoon ceased attempting to be stirred as Dagna turned to catch Sera standing fully in the doorway. Her pretty cheeks blushed under all those freckles, "Ah, it's you. Good. I was afraid it might be the cook, she's not happy with me. Taking over her kitchen, only for a day. Not much time at all. Not that I'm not happy to see you, Legs."

Chuckling at the rather romantic babble, Sera swept into the kitchen that looked as if an angry ogre tried to set up shop. Bowls were piled high on nearly every surface, some filled with piles of things. Could be dough, could be sauces, food stuff. Lots of food stuff everywhere. Her Widdle stood barely a head over the counter as she tried to inspect a book covered in flour handprints.

"What are you doing?" Sera asked. She grabbed onto the spoon, attempting to stir what Dagna abandoned, but found it too refused to obey her orders. Glaring at the mix, she slid the bowl in between her thighs, bent over, and with both hands attached began to move the food glue.

"You heard about the mages, the ones visiting," Widdle explained while watching Sera. She almost had it, the dough starting to slip a bit. Spitting onto her hands, she got a better grip and resumed.

"Uh huh, just what we need, more curtains running around playing with demons and...bigger demons."

"Well, these are...some of them helped me, when I was studying at the Circles. What survived the rebellion at least. And I thought, I wanted to...uh," Widdle extended her hand around the mess, "give them a gift of thanks."

Sera darted an eye up to her Widdle, the pair nearly on the same level as she bent over - which was how Sera liked it. "It's mages. Give 'em a stick."

"A stick?" Dagna turned her head in confusion.

"They're always," Sera's thought paused as the spoon finally dislodged. She moved to stir properly, when the concoction erupted out of the bowl and splattered on the ground. It made a great wet plorp, refusing to ooze into the stone grout. Barely blinking at the mess, she finished, "carrying around sticks. Figure they collect 'em or something."

"Ah, you mean a staff. That's rather different from a stick as..." Dagna blushed as she caught on that Sera was just playing with her. Knocking a toe into the cement blob on the ground, Dagna sighed, "I wanted to make them a treat. Desserts, cookies and the like."

At the mention of cookie Sera spat her tongue out, but she placed the now empty bowl back on the counter and focused on Danga.

Poor Widdle was banging her hands together in thought, "With it being a holiday I wanted to make their trip extra special. Make something amazing, but..." she waved her hands over the mess. "Smithing class didn't translate well to baking."

Sera pursed her lips in thought. She shifted the mighty book around, her eyes scanning through scrawling letters that looked like they fell out of one of Viv's tomes. There weren't even any pictures. What was the point of books without pictures?

"I'll help!" she announced, clearly to Widdle's surprise as the woman's eyebrows buried themselves in her hairline.

"You'll...I thought you hated baking."

"And skirts, and raisins, and straw stuck inside your leggings, and water soaked into your socks and underthings, and that film you get on soup that's been left out," Sera chuckled at her short list before turning to Dagna, "But I like yooou."

Her Widdle blushed brighter than a chantry candle, those brilliant eyes honing in on the book. Clasping her hands together and nodding, Sera said, "What do we need to do?"

"First you require proper attire," Dagna announced, causing Sera to glance down. Did she forget to put pants on again? That was a fun day in the great hall. Never seen Orlesian diplomats move so fast in her life, those stupid masks making it hard for them to find the door. When a few bounced against the door frame in panic, it was totally worth it.

"Here," Dagna pressed a folded up cloth at her, which Sera began to unfurl.

Frills, there were quite a few frills, and a bunny sewn onto the front. Why was there a happy bunny and frills? At her confused look, Dagna pointed at her own chest. "An apron to protect your clothes."

"Right," she'd heard of aprons before, just never worried about stains on her shirts. Only pompous windbags cared about stains. Folding the apron in half, Sera knotted it over her chest like a bib. "How's this?" she asked, proudly sticking out the protected blouse.

"It's..." Dagna rolled her tongue around a moment before smiling, "nice. This recipe calls for 200 grams of flour, 100 grams of butter, fifty..."

Sera must have made a strangled goose noise as Dagna paused in her recitation of a bunch of numbers and looked over at her. "Butter, can you bring me the butter from over there?"

"Got it!" Marching towards the stacks of barrels filled with white and yellow whatever made butter, Sera asked, "This is a lot of work for some robes you ain't seen in years, and years, and years."

"Thank you," Dagna accepted the butter and began to slice chunks of it up to drop in her bowl. "In Orzammar, it was...when it was someone's naming day, or an anniversary, or a feast, you'd celebrate with dessert."

"I'd only celebrate with dessert if I could," Sera added as she sat up on the counter. "Assuming pants have to be involved."

Dagna hefted up a bag full of some secret ingredient and began to measure it out. "Klientart's, that's what we called them."

"Clean farts?" Sera asked before breaking into a peal of laughter.

Her Widdle smiled at that, "They were the size of your palm with a crunchy brown crust and wedges of fruit inside. My mother was always..." At that Dagna's never ending smile faded a moment. Sera scooted across the counter and wrapped both her arms around her. It was a long reach, but worth it as Dagna nestled her giant brain into Sera's chest.

"Since I don't know how to make klientart's, I thought I'd gift my old professors something new. And exciting," Widdle was back to her usual self in an instant.

"How exciting?" Sera asked, her eyes sparking bright at the thought. "Does it explode? Turn whoever eats it blue? Maybe whistle. Ooh, whistling cookies. Varric needs a plate of those."

Dagna batted her eyelashes, easily hooking the wacky elf. "Wait and see," she tried to be all coy, but while dumping in a cup of white stuff added fast, "it should cause a cooling sensation within the mouth of whoever consumes it. Assuming I can get the ratio right and not freeze their tongue off. I'm pretty sure I can. 80%. 75 at least."

Her Widdle resumed attacking the bowl, this time the spoon obeying her orders, when she turned to Sera who was out of anything to do but watch. "Why don't you crush up the peppermints?"

"Crush?" Sera whipped her head over towards a pile of red and white candies sitting on a cutting board.

"The recipe calls for them, for decorating the top. You just have to-"

Hefting up a massive pile in her hands, Sera formed a fist around the candies and hurled them at the wall. A few broke, pinging off shelves stuffed with jars, but most stubbornly refused to be crushed. Growling, Sera stomped over towards them. They lay there, mocking her by remaining intact. Stupid candy.

With a glare in her eye, she hefted her boot up high and slammed it down on the candy. Red and white shards erupted around the room. _Yes!_ Her heels stomped down more, turning the chunks into slivers, and the slivers into dust.

 _Take that! I'll crush you just like I crushed Coryphyspit!_

 _Woo!_

Sera was so lost in hopping up and down on the candy, she didn't realize she'd stomped it so good nearly all of it was now embedded into the soles of her boots. Hefting up a foot, she glared at the slick minty bottom on her heel. "I hate you." She mentally added peppermint to the list.

"The peppermints refuse to cooperate," Sera reported, washing her hands of the whole mess. She moved towards Widdle's side, when her dwarf dropped a cup into the sack of flour. White dust erupted into the air and began to fall like snow. A great swipe of it landed upon Sera's face, causing her to shake her head and dig at her eyes.

Dropping her mighty spoon of desserting, Dagna began to laugh long and hard at the white elf before her. _Oh yeah. Think it's so funny._ Sera reached deep into the bag, both fists full. As she realized the oncoming threat, Dagna reined in her giggles and began to step back.

"Wait, that isn't..."

Two tufts of flour flew at her face. One fully blanketed her hair until she looked like she went old and grey, while the other piled up on her shoulders. Dagna scrunched her face up, still clinging tight to the spoon while she began to spit out whatever flour landed on her tongue.

When her big brown eyes opened, ringed in a sea of white, she glared up at Sera. "You'll regret doing that," Widdle said in such a scary voice, Sera began to shake a bit. She wasn't really mad, right? She didn't mean to...

Bending over, Dagna got an entire arm load of flour to her chest as she shrieked, "This shall be war!" White powder erupted into both their faces, Widdle unable to handle such a might amount. Shrieking in delight, Sera and Dagna began to snatch up handfuls as they tossed the small flour balls at each other. Not about to lose, Sera chased after Dagna.

Widdle dashed around the middle counter, her laughter squealing out of her nose as she tried and failed to dodge all of Sera's mighty flour attacks. Skidding against the slippery and very white floor, Sera nearly fell to her knees. She had to drop her entire stolen sack to catch herself, which was when she looked right up into Dagna's face.

Those sweet eyes that'd sparkle in her bed were doing a bit too much of that. Her adorable little Widdle held an entire flour sack just above Sera's head. She wouldn't. She couldn't.

An unending blizzard of flour tumbled from the sky, blanketing Sera in nothing but powdery whiteness. She sputtered in the assault, swiping at her nose, eyes, and mouth to keep from drowning in baking ingredients. Somewhere beyond the wash she could hear Dagna cackling.

Before the last of the flour dumped onto her head, Sera lashed out and grabbed onto both of Dagna's arms. Her Widdle tried to slip away, but Sera had a tight grip. Pulling her close, she smudged the end of her floured nose into Dagna's. Those laughing brown eyes paused a moment and honed in on Sera's. Tugging her close, Sera tasted of Widdle's soft lips. Normally they'd be all whizz, bang, and wow, but now...

"Yuck!" Sera yanked away, spitting on the ground. Dagna did the same, trying to get the awful flour taste out of her mouth. It was everywhere, practically flour air. Could you breathe flour? Maybe not smart to try, could ask a mage later.

After scraping away her tongue, Sera turned and coyly caught her Widdle coated in the baking snow. This time Dagna curled a hand around the back of Sera's head and began to tug her closer. Her lips aimed right for the perfect ones, when a loud bang broke them apart.

"What in the Maker's name is going on here?!"

Sera caught the flash of gold before her brain figured out the voice. Lifting away from her Widdle, she spotted first the harried ambassador standing in the doorway. Slowly, she turned to take in the kitchen that was looking a lot more festive now. Nearly every surface was coated in white, giving it a real snowy mountainous look.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Dagna and Sera both stumbled to their feet. It was going to take a lot of work to clean this place up. A lot a lot of work. Dwarf and elf exchanged a look and both smiled.

Grabbing tight to Dagna's hand, Sera cried, "Run!" Their feet padded through the flour, leaving incriminating tracks as they peeled past Josephine and out into the great beyond.

Laughter threaded between the two as they escaped to freedom, practically covering up Josie's screaming gurgle of, "Sera!"


	4. Chapter 4

With sticky wine drying to a stain upon his shoulder, Dorian stumbled up the grand staircase. The various guests in states of punch-happy inebriation to near coma all waved and caroused as their servants ushered them out. Dorian gave a final twist of the fingers, his mustache curled up in a proper genteel smile at the gentry fleeing chateau Magister Pavus. No doubt there'd be more drunken caroling as they traveled door to door through the ring of gilded palaces. Perhaps others would join in, the celebration never ending.

He could go with, his veins were certainly strumming a lovely tune courtesy of draining his wine cellar for the evening. But Magister Pavus had far more important matters to attend. Stumbling into the hallway, he rubbed a hand against his stomach which was bulging in an unseemly fashion against the waistband. "Please, you simply must try this. What's another seventeenth fish course? Tis tradition and we of the Imperium never break against tradition," Dorian mumbled to himself while he wandered past his mother's door and towards the suites he claimed for himself.

Barely cracking open the door, he began the laborious task of stripping his clothing off his out feasted body. Buckles unclasped, allowing his bulging flesh overstuffed with all the sweets and meats of the Imperium a chance to breathe. He drew off the fine wool robes dyed in a most scandalous chartreuse. The guests practically squealed in delight when they saw the color, their archon having declared it out of season, but Dorian didn't care. It worked wonderfully with his coloring.

Next came the cuffs, nearly five of them across his two arms all decorated with trappings of the office. The gold declared him of the Magisterium, the silver that he was of a high born family, and the rose... Well, that was private. After laying each upon the small table, he shrugged off the silk shirt wrapped against his chest. His free and naked skin suckled upon the cooler air even as his head thrummed along with a beat that could not possibly exist.

You're getting too old for this, Pavus.

Nonsense. It's only one time a year, after all. And if I'm wrong and cannot survive it, then it's truly only one last time to concern myself with.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Dorian delighted in the pluck of scruff gouging against his palm. He meticulously shaved the morning, but as the festivities carried on into the early morning his hair decided to grow beyond seemliness. Taking in one long cleansing breath, Dorian tugged on the door separating his sitting room from the sleeping quarters proper.

Light spun off the fireplace, twirling with far more grace than the Imperium Dance Companies could ever manage. Dorian fell entranced in the doorway to his own bedroom. It wasn't due to the flames but what the firelight was bouncing off. The man was nearly naked, the marble sculpture of his back's muscles shadowed as he faced the flames. His legs were crossed as if he'd been deep in meditation for hours. Orange light caressed up and down the straining thighs, contrasting the spry muscles at work.

Only a fur mantle graced his shoulders, the grey hair of a wolf burrowing into his own salt and pepper locks. Why he chose to sit here - alone in the room naked - was beyond Dorian, but he was incapable of looking away. The wine drained from his veins, the need to crawl under the covers for sleep converting into a very different urge. A far more pressing one that found his constricting trousers unbearable.

"Your party is finished?"

Dorian blinked, stumbling to make certain he didn't imagine the words woven into the air. It was growing thick with the perfume of winter's spice and the earthy burn of firewood. With the spin of holly and twinkling lights in the air he felt as if he was under a spell. Then again, when it came to this man he had been for far too many years.

"Indeed," he slid a step into the room and nodded down at the man still staring at the fire. "You need not sit up here like some chantry gargoyle, Amatus. I'm certain we could have found a place for you at the festivities. Perhaps at the children's table."

His amatus shook his head slowly, "It is not my place to celebrate in your...what was it again?"

"Satinalia."

"Of course. This many years on and you'd think I could remember all the holy days, the feasts, the plucks and tugs to here and there," he fell silent while lost in the throes of the fire.

Dorian drew his fingers against the fur swaddling Amatus' shoulder in warmth. At first they crested over the top but as the nearly naked man breathed deep, Dorian risked them falling further down until he dug into the muscle and tension below.

"If," the man began, eyebrows dancing up a moment as a hundred thoughts filled him, "if I am keeping you from more feasting or orgies..."

"Oh Amatus," Dorian smiled brightly, "I am fully feasted beyond capacity. And if there is to be an orgy in my bed," he dipped down until his lips skirted against those steepled ears, "you are most certainly invited to attend."

He was easily bantering until those silver-grey eyes turned and consumed Dorian's soul.

A breath strung up in his throat as he stared down at his love's face relaxed in a haunting peace. With their lives it seemed a fraudulent wish, peace came only in spurts and usually before another crisis bit into their psyches. But here, locked away from the world gone quiet for a day, he felt calm. The mantle of the office, the challenge of bringing forth an uprising in the Imperium, even the risk of being seen on the arm of an elf - all of it faded into the ether within this room.

Here was a cozy blanket, a hot mug of cider beside the fire, the perfect arms curled around your body as you slept. It was bliss, and he almost forgot what that felt like.

Stricken numb, Dorian took a knee. He hadn't meant to, his weary body dragging him to the rug beside the fire. His amatus' arms scooped around him, naked flesh molding to naked flesh. The warmth of his love flooded Dorian's senses, the far too familiar scent of woods, of running for your life, of that year he spent never knowing if he'd survive to see a new sunrise overtaking him.

It smelled of home in a way the Magister Pavus mansion never did.

Lifting his head, his amatus stared a moment into Dorian's eyes - their lips but a breath away. Yet, he did not take the opportunity, instead choosing to speak, "I forget, is this one of those holidays where you humans exchange presents?"

Dorian scoffed a moment at the lesson on chantry customs to a man who technically served it. "Some do," he whispered, his hand daring to touch the never whiskery cheek, his palm dipping to follow the striking jawline. Whatever rested inside of his amatus' brain - and there was certain to be much - remained locked away as Dorian drew the man close to his mouth.

Lips that spent the night drowning in wine, in puckering up to those who could better his life, in sneering at those who harmed it, melted to ecstasy as they formed around his love's. Shifting tighter to his grip, his amatus hooked his arm around Dorian's back while his remaining graceful hand danced across the magister skin on display.

As both slipped from their kiss, foreheads caressing against each other as if afraid to linger, his amatus smiled. Drawing a finger against Dorian's mustache, the man mused, "Was there a gift you hoped for in particular, Vhenan?"

He lived a grand life, after all he was a magister. He was a decorated veteran too, fought to rid the world of that false god. Many respected him, against all common sense. But it was cold in his ivory tower on the hill. A man with that caliber could invite nearly any he wanted to his bed. So, of course, he was cursed with a fickle heart that yearned for only one who lived so very far from his arms.

Drawing both hands back through his amatus' hair, Dorian's hands slid down the grey locks to form a bridge at the back of his neck. With an uptick to his lips, his soul sighed in ecstasy, "I have everything I could ever want." Magister and Inquisitor faded from this world as the two men, the old loves, kissed with all their hearts beside the Satinalia fire.


	5. Chapter 5

"A...assassin!"

Curse it, all. Zevran twisted the dagger around in his hands, watching as their supposed gullible prey dashed down the road. A guard's sword slashed for his face, but the pretty elf easily dodged it. He moved to add his own blade into the man's exposed back, but another beat him to it.

Taliesin's flushed face burned a brighter red as he glared at the man who some might confuse for a friend. There were no friends in the Crows. "You said this would be an easy job," Taliesin ranted, taking on two of the guards at once.

Shrugging, Zev flashed a bright smile and took off running. The hired swords weren't really in the mood to die that night, most making half hearted swings that would no doubt fall away once their boss was out of earshot. Taliesin could surely handle them on his own. With a jolly wave to the man, Zevran dashed into the streets.

There should be rivers of wine running between the cobbles, songs reverberating off of stained glass windows, and a parade of children dressed in shepherd's clothing as they tried to scam all the sweet treats they could. But the town was silent, cold, distant - as if its very soul was drained, perhaps by the man Zevran was pursuing. It didn't matter much to him one way or the other. He preferred not spending much time in the provinces for good reason. The beds were lousy, the people to fill them doubly so, and the coin nearly impossible to come by.

This was a special favor, one he was coming to greatly regret agreeing to.

Shaking off the thoughts, he kicked into a higher gear while pursuing the man whose arms flailed about his head as he ran. "Stay away, assassin!" he cried as if people would hear the words and come to his aid. Zev chuckled at the move, as if all of Antiva didn't know to stay away when the Crows were at work.

The man turned down an alley, momentarily vanishing from Zevran's line of sight. No matter. Securing the dagger safe for later in its sheathe, Zevran planted his foot into the muddy trenches and turned.

A pot stuffed with bright red flowers whipped through the air. If not for the assassin's quick reflexes it would have shattered upon his skull and not the wall behind. Pursing his lips, Zev stared a moment at the damage. "That could have hurt someone," he chided while the fleeing steps picked up as the man realized he failed to finish off the assassin.

"Leave me alone!" he cried, his gilded slippers sliding over the cobbles while he turned down a fresh path. Zevran sighed, his lungs already burning from the cold night air. He may be an assassin, but his body wasn't built for all of this exercise in the frosty mountain air.

His body was meant for far better exertions, all of which he was missing out on while chasing after this crooked money lender. Or whatever the man's crime was. It didn't much matter, business was business and he'd be in deep if he let a contract get away. The Masters were already pressing upon Zevran to stop being such a braggart - as if one could easily contain this level of skill behind a false facade of modesty.

Zev took great offense to such a thought. Why, he'd never behaved modestly a day in his life.

Another pot shattered the air, striking a window and continuing through. Blessed Andraste, where was the man getting these from? Zevran tutted his tongue, "Destroying public property will not avail you, signore."

The man's eyes were wild, his silks ripped from his tear through the small town he made his own. But in his mad dash for freedom he failed to take into account the twisting architecture. Foolishly, the man trapped himself right into a dead end. In his case, literally.

"Wa...wait, wait," he said, his hands patting into the pressing bricks as if there might be a secret passageway hidden inside one. His shaved head stopped whipping about to focus the eyes upon Zevran, who was slowly drawing his dagger. "We can, we can come to some sort of bargain. Right, Crow? I...I pay you. In gold. And then I pretend to be dead. You, you let me go for...for 100 sovereigns. Sounds like a great deal, right?"

Zev chuckled at the offer, his palm swiping the dagger back and forth, "Truly, until the Masters get wind of it and it is my liver decorating someone's parlor floor instead of your own. Not that they wouldn't come for you as well after, a job is a job."

His prey gulped, the eyes widening as he must have felt death's claws digging into his spine. Like a foolish child attempting to play at an adult, the man lifted up his fists. They weren't even folded properly. If he took a swing, he was likely to break his own thumbs.

Why couldn't they accept their fate gracefully? He had. A constant parade of murder, death, and freezing toes wasn't the life Zevran would have chosen for himself, but the truth of the world is no one gets to chose their lot. Your fate is as set by some great Maker's finger as your hair color, or the size of your joie de vivre. Choice is an illusion, as ephemeral as kindness, or redemption. There were no second chances in this life, no one to take pity upon a scrap of an elf dressed in knives and leather. That was Zevran's one certainty in life, none would ever care for him, so why should he bother caring for anyone?

"Your life is void," Zevran intoned, a hand reaching out for the man, but he scampered back. Sighing, the elf watched as the prey smashed his heels into the brick wall. There was nowhere for him to go, yet he continued to fight. It'd be admirable if it wasn't also idiotic.

"Not while I still have some fight left in me," he raised his fist as if he was prepared to pop Zevran in his dainty nose.

The elf groaned, wishing to get this over with quickly, and for there to be as little blood as possible. It was impossible to remove the stains off of antivan leather. "Signore, your life was finished the moment the Crows accepted the contract for it."

Moving through the dark alley, Zev hefted his chest up high. He was a good half a foot shorter than the man, but it didn't matter. The blade made up for any missing inches. Reflected in its bloody sheen, the man must have seen the truth. Perhaps he saw his future in it, or his past misdeeds to lead him to this end. Whatever it was, the fists fell and he froze. Acceptance, finally.

Zevran walked closer, a hand about to land upon the man's shoulder when a sound broke through the slumbering village. It started on the cusp of hearing, so soft it could be a single strip of bells dancing on the harness of a sleigh. But it began to grow in strength, the bell's cacophony echoing over every stone, every brick, every body standing in the cold night facing a blood soaked dawn.

A new day began.

With a slow movement, Zevran sheathed his dagger behind his shoulder and stepped away. The man's eyes whipped up over the elf, his thighs flexing as if he intended to leap atop Zev and began beating him. "What are you doing?" the man asked like he now wished to be eviscerated.

"Can you not hear that?"

"The bells?" the man sneered, his fingers itching to pulverize the still armed elf.

A smile flitted around Zevran's lips. "It is Satinalia." The smile faded as he focused on the man, "And it is never proper form to kill on the most holy day."

Scoffing, the man's wild eyes whipped back towards the wall, then the alley. "So...but you said. You're not going to-to kill me?"

"Not today," Zevran grinned with his teeth, "tomorrow; however, is a new day."

The man moved farther and farther to the right until his shoulder plowed into bricks. "Then I..." he danced on his feet, clearly aching to escape, "This is a trick. I'll...I run past and you stab me!"

Zev parted his unarmed hands, "If I intended to trick you, and you fell for it, you'd die. If you didn't fall for it, you'd still die. But if there is no ploy, then it's your best chance at seeing another sunrise."

The man's eyes opened wide, his jaw distending as he hopped back and forth. A few leaps led him forward before he skittered back. In the commotion, the pealing of the bells faded away, only the winds tinged with the scent of dried olive branches overtaking them. Eyeing up his escape, the man took one last hard look at the assassin before running head first past Zevran.

True to his word, the elf didn't move to ensnare him, only watched the man nearly snap his ankle as he turned to flee. "Do try to enjoy it," he shouted at the fading form.

Whistling haphazardly under his breath, Zevran began to trek back towards where he left Taliesin. He'd be angry at their needing to begin the hunt anew the next day, but Zev didn't care. His days were filled with blood, with pain, with never knowing if that knife's edge would end buried in his victim's gut or his own. Honoring one day out of the multitude in a year would not end him.

To his surprise, a small voice broke from the window above where a potted plant smashed through earlier. He stared up to find a girl, little older than 6 or 7 with her eyes shut tight singing a hymn for Andraste. As Zevran stepped onto the proper thoroughfare, magic erupted into the streets. Not the kind done by mages and circles but the deeper one bred inside of every person of thedas.

Dozens of those provincial farmers and merchants, dressed in their night caps and kerchiefs, stepped into the streets. Each held a candle bearing the single light of a soul while the same heart rattling song fell from their lips. Did they know who he was? In Antiva City, most were pleasant to the Crows, but out here an assassin could be strung up as soon as their targets.

Zevran flinched as the circle of lights began to surround him. He instinctively reached back for his dagger, when a hand - brown and knotted from the soil - pressed a small, yellow candle into his grip. The eyes peered over only a moment, watching as the assassin stumbled to catch the piece of wax before it hit the ground.

Staring deep into the flame, the chorus of a hundred voices rose louder. He didn't believe in second chances, in being reborn into a better person. But tonight, with clean blades and the fire of hope in his hands, he ached to.


	6. Chapter 6

Breath could scarcely catch in Krem's lungs as he pivoted down to a crouch behind a pile of boulders. They were the only hope he had to hide and catch his wits. While the endless void of white on white warped his mind, it was the biting chill digging into his fingers, toes, nose, and lungs that really did a number on him.

"First time I've missed my homeland in an age," he muttered to himself while hunkered tighter against the rock. Winds off the mountain twisted the snow about, causing the white fluff to dance over the drifts like sand on dunes. At least most deserts were warm, generally speaking.

He glanced down into his shoes and groaned. Piles of snow built up around his ankles and were already dripping towards the wool socks that thought they'd pass the day safe and dry. So much for that hope. "And sand doesn't melt," he moaned to himself.

"It can if you try hard enough," Dalish chuckled while landing beside him. Her hair was a mess, having fallen after the last attack, but she gave pretty good back before Krem had to call the retreat.

Placing a hand to the cold boulder, he risked a look out towards the horizon. A handful of trees - brittle with green needles - broke up the white, but aside from the torn trenches which both sides fled from the land was pristine. "Where's Stitches and Rocky?" He'd kill for a sapper right now more than the healer, but any body was better than nothing.

Dalish bit into her lip, her mitten covered hands digging into the snow. "Dunno about Rocky, heard him shout something about 'For the Paragons' and he vanished into a pile of snow."

"Stitches?" Krem's breath caught tighter in his throat. They'd started out with so many, how could they be whittled down to only two in the blink of an eye?

Dalish's bright blue eyes drifted around the battlefield before she turned to shrug at him. She hadn't a clue and it was his job to know. "I'm here, I'm here," Stitches huffed, running from the treeline behind them.

"Where were you?"

He jabbed a finger back towards the stand of evergreens, "Was under pursuit and had to give 'em the slip."

"Did you manage?" Krem tried to follow the tracks, but Stitches was bright enough to smudge his as best he could. Not the best fighter but not an idiot at least. The Chargers wouldn't brook someone who could get his fellows killed.

Crossing his arms, Stitches crouched until his ass skirted right above the snow. "Course I did. What do you take me for, some greenskin Orlesian fop?"

At that, Dalish cracked a smile before she dipped into her magic to heat her hands. Out of them all, she was the only one to skip swaddling her body in warm furs. Stitches placed a hand on Krem's shoulder to steady himself as he asked, "What now?"

How did it all fall to him? It'd seemed simple enough when they began, but with snow building around them and the chill of this mountain threatening to burn their flesh off, Krem was beginning to lose all hope. "We need Rocky to have a chance. Our numbers are not kind and to risk attacking now would be unwise."

"Pst," Dalish waved him over towards her side of the boulder. Popping up fast to get a look, she said, "Target at 10 O'Clock, and best of all he's alone."

Krem risked a glance to find a great shadow stomping about in the snow strewn fields. His massive head was twisting back and forth as if trying to sniff them out. Ha, not in this wind.

"We can take him," Dalish insisted, shifting up on her haunches as if she intended to leap onto the boulder and finish the job herself.

"Wait," Krem snatched onto her arm. "We need a plan."

"Why?"

"It could be a trap," he explained to Dalish's annoyance.

Blowing a sigh upward, she said, "Since when is he the type to spring a trap?"

"No," Stitches interrupted her grumbling, "he's right. There's something we're missing. We go running up there and they'll hit us from the trees."

"What trees?" Dalish waved around the vast field. Aside from a handful of pines, which were nigh on impossible to climb, it was nothing but rocky ground. "We do it now, we end this. Then we can get out of this frozen void to warm mead by the fireplace."

As she finished, her icy eyes darted straight to Stitches who for a moment flushed in this frozen weather. His tongue lapped against his lips as he seemed to weigh the thought and her implications. "It's up to our boss, I guess."

Krem scratched a finger against his jawline. Blowing air out of his lips he tried to weigh the situation. Could be a trap. But there was no reason they couldn't then spring a trap back on him. And if they did take him down, he could get to feel the tips of his fingers again.

A plan began to take shape as he drew around the area. There were boulders standing tall around the place. If they were quick, Dalish and Stitches could flank from the sides. But they'd need time, and a distraction. And there was an entire space left wide open.

What he needed was the dwarf.

Krem began to gesture towards the field, when snow erupted upwards from behind them. All three moved towards their weapons, when the snow creature blinked and shook off most of the white powder. Some clung to the braids in the beard and the bushy eyebrows as Rocky tried to pat it all away.

"Here's where you are!" their resident dwarf and sapper growled. "I been up and down the mountain looking for you."

"What in Andraste's name were you doing?" Stitches asked.

"Burrowing. Dwarf," he jabbed at himself. "Not hard to do if you know what you're doing."

Krem chuckled at the look of awe in Stitches face while he clapped his hands. "Okay, here's the plan." He laid it all out for them, getting the three under his command into position until they were ready to strike. They asked few questions, each nodding with their orders.

It was Rocky who asked point blank, "What are you going to do?"

"Draw his attention," Krem said with a smile. "When I give the signal you all come out fighting as hard as possible. Don't relent for anything."

The three nodded, but shared a look. It was doubtful Krem would last longer than a few seconds in the line of direct fire, but hopefully it was enough for them to move. A suicide mission really. He knew it same as they did, but there was no other choice.

"Right," Krem rose to his feet, even while remaining eclipsed behind the boulder, "I'm off. You know when to move, and while I'm gone..." he waved towards the ground around them, "fill up on ammunition."

He hated winter. At home it was a particularly favored time of year for the pompous mages to host as many elaborate parties as possible. Wine tended to run from their fancy houses through the streets, but by the time it reached his family shack, blood and hair was mixed in. The Magisters viewed it all as an endorsement from the Maker himself that they were ordained to be the ones with all the power and gold. While everyone else was gifted with nothing more than the cold and darkness.

Squaring his shoulders and lifting his head, Krem dug both his hands into the snow and formed tight fists. With a slight swagger, he carted both onto the battlefield and stared up his opponent. By the shadows of the blinding white sheen, the shadow looked more like a half bronto half man than usual. Smoke curled through the air as he stomped his boots around.

Frost clung to the exposed flesh of his harnessed chest, though it couldn't turn the skin any grayer than it already was. Krem stepped closer, waiting for him to turn and attack, but it seemed as if he might have the jump on him. Strange.

Pausing at the end of the trenches they dug at the start, Krem threw back his head and shouted, "Hey!" His voice echoed off the mountains, pinging from every peak and burrowing into every valley. Before the sound had a chance to ring back to him, his opponent spun right on his hips and threw.

Instinct took command, Krem falling straight to the ground as the ball sailed harmlessly on by. Still, it was very close. Perhaps an inch or more to the left. Scrabbling to his feet, Krem tried to get both his hands into throwing range as his opponent, with only one attack remaining, stood stall.

"What did I tell you about announcing yourself to the enemy, Krem?" his voice thundered through the desolate landscape.

Shrugging, Krem hefted up the snowball in his fist, "Only when it's strictly necessary, Chief." With as much force as he could manage, Krem hurled his attack towards the massive grey chest. Iron Bull barely blinked, his body seeming to be frozen in fear, but before the snow smashed into his skin he dashed to the side.

 _Damn it!_ The attack hit nothing but more snow. Krem snarled, shifting his backup to his right hand. Bull chuckled as he followed the trail to the shallow grave of the harmless snowball. "Look at that, one to one now." Chief kept hurling his only snowball back and forth in his hands, his laugh rattling the needles in the trees.

"Well Vint," Iron Bull whipped his horns back and forth, a glare rising in his one eye, "let's see what you're made of."

Both Chief and Right Hand Man pulled their snowballs back, ready to throw them and finish this off. Krem moved first, his arms whipping forward, but his fingers didn't release. "Now!" he shouted while plummeting to the ground.

From all three sides behind came a barrage of snowballs. Dalish, Stitches, and Rocky ran towards the Chief, whose body undulated with each attack striking him. "Wait!" Iron Bull cried as a snowball struck him in the chin. "Okay, that's..." another erupted on his chest, "Hang on a second..." he continued as the three with their arms full of snowballs converged upon the boss.

Knowing he was beat, Iron Bull held his hands out wide and smiled. "All right, guys," he said. "Ya got me." His chuckle rose as if the combatants were going to drop their armloads of snow onto the ground. All three heads pivoted back to Krem who rose to his feet.

Wiping off the snow caught in his coat, he smiled, "Finish him."

The rapport of snow striking skin reverberated through the clearing as all of Bull's grey flesh vanished beneath a sheen of white. He tumbled backwards, landing fully into the snow drifts as Dalish, Stitches, and Rocky unloaded the last of their ammunition upon the boss. Laying stretched out in the snow, his hands spread as if he intended to make an imprint, Bull chuckled.

When the laugh kept on, and began to pick up speed, Krem frowned. "What's so funny, Chief?" He blinked fast, the hair on the back of his neck rising.

"You," Bull chortled while lifting his head out of the snow, "forgetting to watch your six."

Krem turned just as all of the missing party erupted from beneath the snowy fields. "Run!" he shouted to his fellows, but it was too late. Balls struck all four of them from every side. It was an unending fury of frozen white dragging them to their doom. Krem tried to cough out an order, but his mouth could only suck in snow - the ice racing to freeze out his lungs. Without any recourse to stop the others from finishing them off, Krem fell to his knees.

He tucked his head into his chest, letting the last of the snow pelt into his back and shoulders. It wouldn't end, not until he gave in. Raising a hand, he shouted loudly, "I yield!"

The barrage ceased immediately, Bull's warm mitt grabbing onto Krem's frozen hand. The chief easily yanked him to his feet as he stumbled through the shifting ground. Tipping his horns, the Chief smiled, "What do I tell you? Never use up all your ammunition. Save a damn arrow back."

Krem snarled, the snow having found its way through every layer on his body. It burrowed so deep into his underthings he could feel his ass crack freezing solid. "I despise this time of year."

A massive hand thumped into his shoulders, causing Krem to buckle a moment. "Don't get all pouty there, Krem. Last thing we want is a Clotted Krem." The groan carried from its target through nearly all of the Chargers, even those who attacked him. "Get something warm down your throat, warm in your belly, and warm on your lap," the Chief jabbed a massive elbow towards Krem as if he might miss the innuendo, "and you'll be right as rain."

Accepting that for the fifth time that year he lost in the great snowball fight, Krem waved for his fellow Chargers to follow suit. At least in the Herald's Rest he could peel off his wet socks and let them dry by the fire. Chief had a habit of stashing coins in any he found hanging there. Found it funny.

While the Chargers stumbled in out of the cold mountains towards the promise of Skyhold, Iron Bull threw his arms wide and shouted, "I love this shit!"


	7. Chapter 7

Snow wet winds whipped around his body, hurling him back with each step he took. Despite the furs draped across his reedy chest, and the protection spells at play, the force broke through. It chilled his marrow, iced the veins from his wrists down to his toes, chipped his teeth to icebergs. This wasn't snow, not truly. It wasn't even what one would think of as weather.

The winds of despair were what washed against Solas' waining form. Cries of hopelessness, pain, regret, loss, fear - all of it melded to form a gale force that could easily rip him out of his boots and into the air. Each flake was not a sliver of snow dropped from the clouds, but a tear born in the same relentless darkness that pursued him still.

It was an unforgiving, cruel mountain. It was also the only place he could hope to hide, an aura of despair shielding him - shielding them all. The Evanuris would never visit such a place, to soak in the sorrow and suffering they themselves formed would go against their very nature. To wade into it, to let each frozen tear bead against their skin would... In truth, it may cause them to rethink their place in the world, and would-be gods could never suffer doubt.

A warmth drifted through Solas as his companion faded in and out of his body. He tried to smile in gratitude at the attempt, but with the press of the cold upon his heart he could not manage. This was not supposed to happen.

Behind his frozen from, stashed away inside caves, were dozens upon dozens of lives. They clung together in the rags on their backs, listening to the howls around them as the solitary fire sputtered to its eventual doom. He never meant for any of this.

It began, as most things do, with a slip of a thought. That thought grew to a pressing need upon his heart and before he stopped to weigh the full might of the situation he began an avalanche. One freed slave became two, then ten, then a hundred. Faces wiped clean by his hands were now mouths that needed feeding, and unshackled limbs deadening to ice in the press of this horrible place.

They tried to be grateful to the man who broke their bonds, but he felt it lurking in every eye - what next? What life can there be for a freed slave in this world of the Evanuris. The moment they step out of this bubble they would be found, caught, made an example of. There was scarcely a tree in the forests surrounding Falon'din's fortress that did not have a noose hanging from it.

"What have I done?" Solas' head crumbled to his hands, the tears of the heavens slicking his bald skin. The companion at his side tried to comfort him, as it had since he left the safety of the cave, but he was moving beyond reproach.

"There are lives depending upon me. I cannot return them back from where they came," he cried to the spirit beside his elbow. "It would be a death sentence. Or worse, a never ending life of torment."

For the first time, more than just himself rested inside his hands. He flexed his fingers, feeling the fresh calluses scrape over the once tender and perfumed skin. Bruises and bunions crafted from undoing ropes, from crawling through dark sewers, from gathering weapons and building...

What was he building if not a footnote in history? His small rebellion would be crushed, as they all had. The Evanuris would brook no upstart to their titles, no smaller god yanking their prizes from them. Solas held his palm flat and watched the snowflakes build up in his frozen grip. One by one, they'd all be blotted out, their names stripped from memory.

"You are trying," the spirit whispered.

He blinked a moment, his finger poised from attempting to stub out the flakes in his hand. "I am failing. Even now they feel it, they know there is nothing after this moment. Survival cannot carry a man, survival cannot feed a woman's soul. We need more than that. We need a reason to live."

His words should have rocked the mountain, but the cold pressed in tighter. With shoulders trembling, he dug himself deeper into the wolf furs stretched upon his body. They'd been guardians over the first slaves he freed, Solas cutting them down before he even knew what he was doing. Now they branded him, named him not only for his followers but his enemies as well.

"You need rest," the spirit said, its soft face gliding further into the darkness of the sky. Even the light of a spirit could not be maintained long in this endless void. How much time could he expect elves to last?

Solas bobbed his head, but he did not turn towards the cave. The despair twisted around his legs like a cat, singing its dirge to drag him down. It was growing stronger, fed not just by the Evanuris but the people he claimed to help. Their hearts were freezing in their chests, their fears growing more solid with each breath. They needed more than what little a man with only two hands could provide. They needed...

Raising a hand to his eyes, Solas parted the never ending wash of white. Without a sun or stars to light it, the white muddled to a matte that bleached the eye and left one disoriented. If not for his spirit friend, he'd have never found the cave nor been able to leave it and return. One could not navigate the mountains of despair alone as it was like treading across a blank scroll, never a line drawn to give directions.

But something broke between the shifting snows on the ground. Solas hurried towards it, his spirit companion trailing close by. It was little more than a small spot in the white, perhaps a foot tall. As he drew closer, a warmth struck inside of Solas' heart. This was it. This was what they needed the entire time.

After making quick work thanks to a plan in place, Solas dashed back quickly to the cave. No doubt they recognized his spirit who never left his side, but the guards still eyed him up a moment before banging on the door. "Fen'Harel has returned."

The call echoed through the knotted cave overflowing not just with strapping young men and women, but the elderly, the infirm, and children. More than a dozen children huddled around a single doll, doing their best to share in a toy that they'd never before had a chance to play with. It was not an army he had at his beck and call, but it would have to become one.

Stepping into the middle of the campsite, Fen'Harel hefted back the hood on his fur coat. Eyes followed him, eyes that risked their lives for him for no reason beyond an empty promise. It was time he made good on that.

Reaching into his coat, he unearthed what sent him rushing back to the cave. Mouths fell agog in curiosity as Fen'Harel placed the uprooted sapling into a bucket. The wolf god dug into the frost bitten soil at his feet, his fingers warming it until he could properly plant the sprig of green safely with fresh dirt. All around him, the freed people watched, not a word being spoken, but it was clear they had no idea what to make of this.

"When we came here," Fen'Harel began, "it was to hide, to find succor as best we could, and survive. But we cannot remain hidden behind walls of stone forever." He ran his fingers over the sprig of green sprouting from a thin branch. "Despair is what allows the Evanuris to rule, fear of change, of rising up against what has always been."

The people shared a look, they'd known it well. Even as they were traded like chattel, treated worse than livestock, all they hoped for was a minor miracle. Freedom for themselves, their families, their friends. Freedom for all was as impossible as killing a god.

"Look at this tree," he hefted up the pot over his head. "Even in the depths of despair it grew, its branches full of life, the roots strong and deep." He'd left his own blood on the snow in digging it up, the first of much to come. "This is hope, which is in all of us. It may be tiny now, bruised and beaten from the would-be gods shattering our bones and souls, but it will grow. It will become a mighty tree that will seed into a forest."

Placing the symbol onto their lone cooking table, Fen'Harel continued, "There is a reason this tree is covered not in leaves but needles. We cannot become the forest we must without pain, without the sword, without shedding blood in our wake. We must fight back, we will suffer, we will lose people, but this...this non-life cannot be allowed to continue."

Solas, the studious young man who kept his head down for too many years, who failed to look when others cried out in the darkness, faded from this world. Perhaps one day he could return, but he was not what was needed. Fen'Harel bared his fangs to the people rising around him.

His companion, who'd been a wisp of a spirit before, began to radiate in power as each person lifted their heads to the heavens, their fists in solidarity. Hope sprang alive in every heart, the light growing stronger as the tree began to take root and grow.

Folding his hand into a fist, Fen'Harel declared, "We shall sunder the thrones of the false gods, break the chains that bind our brother and sisters, and reset the rotted foundation of our world to save us all."

The cry of vengeance ripped apart the chill of despair. It whipped away instantly, leaving the cave warm as a summer day while every elf in his command screamed of change. There would be much of that required in the coming days and months. This fury required an unquenchable source of fuel, but there was only one thing to strike the first flame: hope.

For now, it was little more than a single tree nestled in the base of what would become their fortress. But one day it would become an army that every god would fear.


	8. Chapter 8

He had to get out of the city.

They had to get out fast before anyone recognized him. Tugging the hood down further, they flexed his hands a moment as a drunkard's lazy eye drifted to the stranger in the corner. Power burned in the back of his skull, more strength than even he dare let himself imagine in the cold dungeons of the tower. All of it screaming for...for something.

Anders gasped as he dug both of his hands, not theirs, into his head. He had control, not Justice. They heard a sound, and he lifted his head to... Maker's breath this was getting confusing.

"Hey buddy," a hand landed onto their shoulder and he felt Justice riling up inside his mind - the spirit was like a hissing cat with its tail puffed out. It wanted to swipe away anything in its path. It did before with Anders' hands at the command.

"Not now, you idiot," he whispered to himself, trying to take back the tenuous control. It kept fading in and out, miles of their journey passing in seconds to him whenever the spirit he let into his soul seized control. Not even a day into this and he was already wondering how stupid this was.

Biting down the spirit, Anders turned with a sloppy grin on his face to find a man with nearly the same. The man squinted a moment and eyed him up, "You look familiar."

"I get that often. 'You bear a striking resemblance to my brother, old friend, aunt Gertrude.' Must be my face, excellent bone structure."

The drunk man burped to himself and shrugged, "S'kay." With that mystery solved he stumbled back to his chair as Anders began to argue with himself in the corner.

"Why waste time with such frivolity?"

"It got rid of him, didn't it?"

"We have a mission at hand."

"I bloody well know we..." Anders' lips slowed as he realized he spoke all of that aloud, both parts to himself, at himself, with himself? Andraste's tits, here comes that headache again.

What does a woman's mammary tissue have to do with a headache?

Blighted blood, was he doomed to spend his life explaining things to his own head? Focus Anders. He bought himself a day, maybe more. The one perk to killing everyone who tried to chain him, there were none to send out the warning. But they'd wonder, the Keep would come.

She'd come.

To find him or worse?

He had to leave and now. Rising to his legs, the teal colored coat he borrowed off a merchant snagged on the chair. Anders walked towards the bartender, all smiles, "Any chance you know of a boat leaving Amaranthine tonight?"

"Tonight?" the woman spat in shock. "It's damn near blizzard conditions out there. Have to be daft to head out in this."

"Captain daft at your service," he extended a hand towards her even as the new voice in his head growled at the waste of attention.

"Where ya heading?"

 _Anywhere but here._ He opened his lips to say as such, but they fell open to speak, "Kirkwall."

"Kirkwall? What in the void for?" her buffing of the glasses paused, sadly causing her bosoms to cease swaying. Which Anders just realized Justice didn't let him fully enjoy. Wonderful.

 _Yes, why do we want to head to a city known for persecuting mages, when I am a mage with a blighted spirit stuck in my head? If you want us killed, why bother with the boat trip? I'm sure I can find a templar with a sword shoved up their ass in Amaranthine to finish us off._

We have a duty to defend mages and nowhere are they suffering more than in the City of Chains. I have felt it even while in the fade.

Blighted ballsack. Darting his eyes up to the busty barkeep, Anders smiled, "Always wanted to try their famous fudge."

She looked about to answer when the door to the cheap bar opened. He expected another burly sailor to wander about the tables, but it was a thin body hidden under piles of rags that slipped inside. Paler than the moon, the newest patron wasn't much taller than three and half feet. Moving slowly, as the hood came down, her matted hair of a dull brown tumbled to the small of her back. Her cheeks were sunken in deep, the tip of her nose turning blue as she hustled towards the fire.

For once Anders felt Justice staring just as intently at the pitiful creature scampering towards the few tables. She had a small basket in her arms as she kept showing off her handfuls of flint to would-be customers.

 _That child is ill._

It was impossible to ignore, her head twisting to the side to cough while she scampered from table to table trying to sell her wares. Most of the drinkers had no use for such a thing, sending the no doubt starving girl back to the boards.

She's not our concern. We have to leave or we won't be alive long enough to worry about helping anyone. Anders began to walk towards the door, the foolish thought that he could steal a boat rising in his head, when a man with white whiskers turned to him.

"Heard you be wanting to head to Kirkwall. Well, you're in luck there, sunny 'cause I'm going the same way. Though," the man who slid closer to Anders was bathed in the scent of bathtub gin. Which after a year suffering Oghren wasn't that bad in comparison. "Hope you don't mind having to swing by a little off the books side first."

What does he mean, off books? We require a ship, not books.

"He's a smuggler," Anders groaned to himself, then winced as once again it slipped free.

The whiskered man's one good eye drifted up and down the skinny mage, "Talk to yerself, do ya? No skin off my bones one way or the other. Kinda pretty for this place, though."

His eyes opened wide a moment with the compliment. So that was to be the arrangement. And it'd been bad enough explaining the necessity of bowel movements to Justice. How would he handle this?

"I..." Anders began to step closer, willing to do anything to get out of Amaranthine, when a great cry broke from the bartender.

"Hey!" she whipped a towel through the air, her eyes burning, "You! Yes, I see you, you brat!" The scrawny girl yelped and tried to duck under tables. Rounding out from behind the bar, the purveyor reached down to grab onto the girl's collar.

"We don't suffer your stench around here, ya street filth," the bartender hissed while dragging the girl out from below the table.

She gasped, the basket nearly falling from her fingers while she dug into the woman's arms, but the girl was too thin to free herself. Anders rose from his seat. "Wait!" he cried, causing the woman to turn to him. "What are you doing?"

"Let one of 'em in and a dozen fill the place trying to pawn off stolen goods. Like rats," she sneered, both hands holding the girl tight.

"You can't throw her out into the blizzard, she'll freeze," he continued, but the woman shrugged as if it wasn't her problem.

Yanking open the door, she shoved the tiny slip of a child out into the cold and finished by kicking towards her. The girl was wise enough to dodge out of the way of the boot as she went running into the rising snow.

 _We must pursue after her!_ Justice rattled around in his head, the sword he carried knocking into every one of Anders' teeth. He took a step before the survivalist inside claimed him. We need to get out of Amaranthine, now.

 _That child is ill. Human children do not live long in the cold._

He tried to not roll his eyes at the spirit explaining humanity to the human, but in doing so Anders caught the eye of the only one willing to give them passage. The man was clearly enjoying the crazy and pretty mage ,but he wiped his mouth off and burped.

Digging his hands in tight, he shouted at Justice. We have to fight for all mages, yes? If we stay to help one girl, they will catch us. They will kill us.

The spirit fell quiet at the logic, but Anders felt in his soul the unease at such an option. In the fade everything was black and white, spirit and demon. Out here in the real world nothing made any damn sense and there was no easy answer.

"Well," the would-be ride, in many different iterations of the word, staggered to his feet, "you coming with, Serrah Talky?"

"I..." He'd heard the rattle in the little girl's lungs, how she coughed into the knotted up end of her shirt. It was clotted lung, no doubt. Wouldn't take more than a minute, five at the most to cure it. Maybe if he was quick.

The smuggler seemed to sense Anders' sudden hesitation, his hand reaching out to run up and down the mage's bicep. "Look, we on a bit of a schedule here. It's either now or never."

 _We must defend mages from the injustice of the world._

 _We are duty bound to protect the innocent._

 _We belong where the most pain is wrought by those who wield it unfairly._

We...

Sneering, Anders turned on a shoe and ran out of the bar into the blinding blizzard. His eyes hunted through the sludge searching for any sign of where the little girl went. Damn it, what did Nathaniel say about finding tracks? He was always prattling on about duty with that thick lip of his. And...

Ah! Anders caught it, the hint of a shoe trudging through the snow. A tiny one, certain to belong to a tiny girl. As he picked up the trail, following it around the rebuilding bends of the city, Justice perked back up inside his mind.

"Are we not required to leave this city?"

"We'll get to it, there's plenty of other boats. Blizzard here means blizzard back at the Vigil. Doubtful they'd even send someone for another day."

The tracks vanished, Anders whipping around in a circle. Damn it!

"But you said..."

"I know!" Anders shouted through the crush of white flakes visible only against the torchlights perched upon the outside of buildings. "I know what I said, and I know what I have to do okay, so shut up and help me find her."

"There." Whatever Justice did in his head, spots in the ground began to glow like beacons. Anders picked up speed, trailing after them as quick as he could. They wound around the back of a building, barely enough room for a chicken to squeeze through. Tucked tight under a small wooden overhang sat the child.

Her head was tucked tight to her knees, the snow encroaching around her as she kept striking her little flint. Sparks danced through the night, but her fingers were slowing. A wind whipped snow across the girl, blinding her a moment from Anders' view. As it faded, the chunk of rock tumbled from frozen hands and Anders gasped.

"No, no no no!" he shouted, dashing forward with both hands extended. The moment they touched the girl, he poured all the warmth in his body into her. "Come on," he cried. "Stay with me, kid. Come back."

Every healing spell ripped out of Anders' veins, the mana flooding quickly as he tried to revive a fading spark. There was no kindling to catch, no wick for it to land upon. The spark danced back and forth in his fingers, but refused to light. Brushing his cheek to the girl's cold head, Anders gulped, "I...I came to save you. To help."

Fat tears welled up in her filthy hair, Anders digging deeper and deeper into a well that would soon run dry. He knew when there was no chance, had seen it often and was always willing to wash his hands of the problem. But now? No. He wouldn't, he couldn't. He had to...

His eyes lit up blue, the skin cracking apart across his body as Justice touched the dying girl. The spark roared into a flame, finding purchase back in this world. A warmth filled her body, the girl sputtering out as she sucked in the breath that fled from her. "Hey," Anders gulped in a laugh, embarrassed by the swell of emotion in his eyes. How did he get so attached to a child he'd never seen before?

That wasn't him. That'd never been him.

"I've got you," he whispered to the child, "and I'm going to heal you." While Anders delved into the healing machinations to cure her lungs, he felt Justice prodding back into his mind.

 _Why did we waste so much power on one human?_

"Because..." Anders swallowed hard, "I had to."

"When you said we did not need to before?"

"Justice, look, humans aren't always, we don't jump right in, it... Sometimes we take awhile to..." His words faded as he snuggled tighter into the box, the warmth of his magic melting all the snow around them. The spirit was in for one hell of an education inside of Anders' head. And, he was in for a change too, with a spirit guiding his heart towards new terrifying shores. Anders survived by not caring, by not getting involved save his own skin. Now, he could never again look away.

It was a half hour later when Anders banged his fist hard into the chantry door. He had to knock five times before one of the Sisters, with her hair in curlers, opened it. "What do you...?" was as far as she got before Anders barreled his way in.

"Here," he thrust the sleeping and healing child into the Sister's arms.

"What? What is this?"

"A child. I'm surprised you can't recognize one the way the chantry goes on and on about how they are the lambs of Andraste."

While the Sister kept a grip to the girl's body, she glared at Anders, "I cannot take this. What am I to do with her?"

"Give her to the orphanage, isn't the chantry all about succoring orphans and widows?"

The Sister's cold eyes darted down to the forgotten flint girl who nearly vanished into the snow. "They would never accept her. Children of her ilk run away all the time, try to make it on the streets selling trash." She hefted up the child's final flint, which Anders kept in the girl's pocket.

"Then..." Anders wanted to rip his hair out in frustration. He didn't need this, neither of them needed this. Was there anything in this blighted world the chantry was actually good for? Was there anyone in a cruel, uncaring world who'd take in the forgotten?

Blinking slowly, his words stripped raw, Anders said, "Take her to Vigil's Keep."

"What?"

"They will accept her, take her in. At least one person will give her a chance," he gulped, the guilt burning into the heart of both voices in his head.

The Sister's tongue stilled a moment, her very life no doubt owed to the woman at that Vigil. But she was not about to be undone easily. Juggling the girl, she sneered, "The Vigil is a day's march. You expect me too..."

Eyes burning with vengeance, Justice leaned towards the woman, and in a voice that could rattle mountains he ordered, "You will take that child to the Vigil and you will make certain she is cared for!"

The woman's entire face fell apart, her eyes wide as eggs as she nodded. First at Justice, then Anders, and finally the girl. Out of fear that wasn't enough, she said, "Yes, I...yes, I will take her. It is the Andrastian thing to do."

Sneering, Anders marched towards the door. Before leaving, he leaned over to the lost and found box and yanked up the scarf inside. He was going to need it before this weather broke. With one last look at the slumbering girl, Anders dashed back into the blizzard. He had to get out of this city.


	9. Chapter 9

The sack thudded with a great metal clink to the brown grass. Gauntlets, greaves, back and breastplates all tried to spill out in the fall, but he didn't care. Cullen's eyes filled with the vision before him. To most it was nothing more than another farmhouse out in the scrabbling western fields of Ferelden - to him it was home.

He stumbled through the picket fence, the gate swinging back and failing to catch. On instinct he wound a bit of bailing wire through the latch, trying to hold it in place. His lungs filled with the scents of childhood. White peaked mountains circled the horizon behind, the Frostbacks threatening them with a chill to silence the once green fields into a desolate brown.

But there was life here too. Bread doughs rising next to the stones of the hearth, pies being stuffed with all manner of preserved fruit from the height of summer. His stomach rumbled at the promise of so many feasts waiting in the kitchen, but his feet held firm upon the flagstone.

It held all four of the Rutherford children's handprints, Mia's the largest and dead center. Cullen had been uncertain, only half of his once tiny fingers dented into the hardening mortar. Bending over, he reached to try and mimic the old mark, only to find his scarred hand trembling in the air.

He couldn't do this. He didn't belong here, he was...

A whine drew his head up towards the screen door. It tugged upon its spring, bounding back into the blonde woman wiping her flour coated hands off on an apron. Her deep brown eyes darted through the farmyard a moment before landing right upon the man at the doorstep.

"Cullen?" Mia stuttered. He tried to smile, a hand ruffling back through his hair. Would she want to see him? Would any of them?

"Maker's breath!" Mia shouted, leaning back into the farmhouse, "It's Cullen!"

Not caring about the distance, his sister flew down the steps and straight into his hanging arms. Despite being shorter, she nearly knocked him back on his ass. Mia was quick to wrap her arms safely around him, ensnaring him in the family bond, while Cullen kept his hands level.

By the fading light of the sun, the red glint gave the appearance of blood upon his palms. The thought rampaged through his skull, causing the fingers to tremble even as his sister clung to him. "Mia..."

"We didn't, we never thought you'd come back for the holidays," she muttered, her face streaking in tears.

He swallowed the ones buried in his heart and sighed, "I did not plan it, but..." He wound up here by some will of the Maker, unable to walk away. Needing to be here. Needing to see them.

"You're so..." she began, when another set of boots stomped through the screen door.

"Branson," Cullen smiled. His elder brother by barely a year dashed forward to join in the hug.

"Look at that," Branson cooed, "a full house for Satinalia. It's a miracle of the Maker."

He folded into the shared embrace, Cullen's bent forehead brushing near both his brother and sister's shoulders. A warmth filled his bones, as if the heart that'd been laying dormant in his chest for years suddenly began to beat. He could remain in this fold for a month, a century. He would if someone asked it of him.

Mia was the first to slip away, her smeared hands fussing about Cullen's face. She smudged flour over his cheeks while tugging on the deep set wrinkles and clucking at the age and wear. "You're just in time to help decorate. Branson was going to cut up a few branches to hang over the mantle, maybe string up holly on the fence."

His brother smiled wide, "And Mia's up to her elbows with the baking."

"Elbows," Mia laughed as she hefted up the bottom of her skirt to reveal flour stains up and down the hose below, "and knees. It's a madhouse in there. But you should be used to it," she added the jab towards Cullen who wanted to smile in remembrance and nostalgia.

To trim the clippings with his brother, sneak a biscuit off of Mia's tray when she wasn't looking, sit by the fireplace reading from the Chant of Light while the herding dogs slumbered at his feet. It wasn't just Satinalia inside - it was home, it was peace.

The bloody light grew thicker on his fingers, Cullen glaring down at it dripping from the knots and calluses. No. This wasn't right. He didn't...he couldn't. Shaking his head like a mad bull, Cullen stepped away from the welcoming warmth of his childhood home.

"I don't..." a shudder trembled up his chest, "I shouldn't be here."

"Nonsense," Mia insisted, "you're family. Family is what Satinalia's all about. Right?" She turned to Branson, who nodded grimly to back her up.

"But..." He clenched his fists tight together, screams echoing down his spine, pain spidering in the back of his eyes, and the blood forever pooling against the naked soles of his feet. "I'm not the same, Mia. I've... I've done things, seen things that no one should. I'm not..."

His panicking mind cooled a moment as he stared straight into his sister's eyes, "I'm not a good man."

He expected her to let go, to stumble back into the house with Branson and leave Cullen bereft on the stoop. The pristine family who never suffered from anger burned into their soul by blood mages deserved peace by the fire. He only deserved the chill of the stoop.

"Cullen," Mia drew her hands beside his arms and gripped tight, "I forgive you."

"You don't even know what I've..."

"Don't matter," she said with a shake of her head and a smile. "You're always welcome here."

A hand thudded against his back and he turned over his shoulder to watch Branson smile as well, "And you always will be."

"Th...Thank you," he sputtered, his chin tumbling to his chest. Cullen snagged both of his siblings into a tight hug, the tears properly falling. With each drop, the blood receded from him. It couldn't be washed away, no matter how hard he tried, but Cullen felt himself standing on an island as pristine as a child's mind.

The screen door banged once again, and he moved to look towards it expecting to find his second sister there. "Well," a man with hair of grey and white rubbed a hand against the fraying patch upon his shirt. "Isn't this a treat. All my kids under one roof."

"Father?" Cullen stumbled, his eyes opening wider. "You..." He hadn't aged a day since Cullen left when he was only thirteen. His father saw him to the village and the welcoming arms of the two templar knights. It'd been a quiet walk through the morning air, barely even a wagon or rider flying past on the road.

Before his dad had let him go into the order, the stoic man pulled his youngest son into a hug and told him, "You'll do great things. I believe in you."

Stumbling up the steps, Cullen paused before the un-aging man. His father slipped an old pipe into his pants and reached over to clap his son on the back. For a moment Cullen held his breath, fearing the touch would be cold as the grave, but warmth bloomed through him. The same warmth that came from his sister and brother. The house itself seemed to be imparting it into him, its bones begging to welcome him into its safe embrace.

"Father," he cried with a great smile, his face burrowing into the old coat that smelled of hay, liniment oil, and peppermints. Heavy arms wrapped around Cullen the same way they had before he stepped away from them all. Back when he believed in people and wanted to do good. Before the mages twisted that hope into something dark and sinister.

Here, in the glow of his family's love all that pain drifted away. The hate faded and, for the first time in a decade, he felt himself aching for absolution and freedom from the anger. Fingers sifted through his curls, his father taking a moment before he turned and shouted, "Ma, you should come out here and see your boy?"

From deep in the house he heard his mother call out, "Branson?" The voice he was certain he'd never hear again caused fresh tears to spring in Cullen's eyes. Why couldn't he cease crying? This was a happy moment.

"Nah," his dad stepped back, leaning into the dark farmhouse, "the other one."

"My baby boy," the full bodied voice hustled closer, sounds of shoes clipping over the wooden floorboards following. Cullen smiled, waiting for his mother to fall into his arms, to tell him he was growing up so handsome, and that he was too thin. A flash of white grew larger from deep inside the farmhouse. He moved to open his hands to her.

"Captain."

He flinched, a pain burrowing into the back of his head. All of his family froze a moment, watching as Cullen dug fingers into his closed eyes to try and excise the unexpected headache.

"Knight Captain."

Cullen sat up, the weak candlelight seeming to melt the brick walls circling him. He lifted his hand a moment, only to have it thud to the plain desk upon which he'd fallen asleep. Lapping a tongue over his cracked lips, he turned to the fresh faced man behind his shoulder. "Lieutenant?" he coughed out, trying to quickly bury the sea of disappointment in his soul.

The templar saluted a moment as if it was necessary, before explaining, "There is some rowdiness occurring in the mage barracks, Ser."

Shoving back his chair, Cullen groaned. The full weight of the armor crushed against his body, threatening to drag him to the ground. Steeling his spine, the Knight Captain stood to full attention as he moved towards the door out of his room. "Why am I not surprised? This usually happens whenever we draw close to a holiday."

The lieutenant nodded at the sense he spoke, before letting his eyes drift around Cullen's stripped down room. Even for a templar, his was a sparse living quarter. One small shelf of books, one footlocker for a change of clothing, and an ink pot. He needed nothing else to perform his duties save the fire in his belly.

Cullen caught the man's wandering eye and raised an eyebrow. "Is there something else, Knight-Lieutenant?"

The man...no, he was barely that. With a face still full of puppy fat and wide green eyes he looked younger than Cullen did when he first arrived at Kinloch tower. When he had hope. "I, uh, I was wondering if you..." He'd clearly been caught trying to sneak a peek at his commanding officer's living space, but backtracked instantly, "If you had any plans for Satinalia, Ser."

A vice squeezed against Cullen's heart. He'd solidified it, turned it to stone years back when he was plucked out of that mage's prison. No warmth could touch it, no kindness seep from its like again. But with the fade induced memories of his family standing around him, loving him, forgiving him, his heart wept.

Weary eyes drifted over to a single letter perched upon the desk. There would be no returning, no farmhouse to walk up to, no flagstone to remember, no parents to hug, no fireplace to warm his bones by. His life, what little it was worth, belonged to the templars.

"No," he said with certainty in his veins. He needed to deal with the mages before another riot broke out. He did not have time to waste on such frivolity. Cullen yanked open his bedroom door, encouraging the Lieutenant to go first.

For a moment, his eyes lingered on the letter left on the desk. Yellow from age, it was the last one he received from Mia before he left Ferelden forever. Most of the wrinkles circled around her informing him about both of their parents dying in a darkspawn attack.

There was no reason to return home because there was no home waiting for him, except in his dreams.


	10. Chapter 10

h3 style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 12.0px Courier; min-height: 14.0px;" /h3  
p class="p7"Her fingers tightened against the glass, strawberry bubbles bursting when each rose to the surface in the festive wine. Each pop passed her by as Cassandra was tightly focused on the decor dangling from the ceiling. Rather, the lack there class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p  
p class="p7"A dozen couples twisted on past, hands in the air, legs crossing in and out over each other as they swung together in harmony. She was supposed to be relaxing, savoring a rare downtime before more work was required, but Cassandra couldn't shake the sneer on her lips nor the hunched shoulders burrowing her head deeper into her neck. Flitting through the crowds of revelry came an answer for the Seeker who could no longer avoid the question./p  
p class="p7""Ambassador!" she called, giving a small wave from her place propping up the back wall. Josephine smiled and nodded at one of numerous dignitaries who were invited to Skyhold for this small celebration. The ambassador assured them all it would be a tiny matter for the holiday, even the Seeker nearly swallowing it until she spotted the guest list. And the wine list. One did not require enough casks to drown a dragon unless there was a greater plan afoot./p  
p class="p7"Asking a few more times if people were enjoying themselves, Josephine finally slipped to the side of Cassandra. "This is going swimmingly," she cooed to class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p  
p class="p7"The Seeker snorted, placing the lip of her glass to her mouth and taking a slow swig. Bubbles burst on her tongue, but it tasted of acid instead of class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p  
p class="p7"Sensing the darkness that refused to leave Cassandra's side, Josephine turned to her, "Or is there a problem I am unaware of?"/p  
p class="p7""The decor," Cassandra grunted, waving her half empty glass at the bits and baubles scattered through the place./p  
p class="p7""It's beautiful, isn't it? Glass balls are all the rage in Val Royeaux at the moment," the ambassador grinned like the cat with a mouth stuffed full of feathers. Gaudy glass balls done in colors of blue, silver, and gold hung off the ceiling of the great hall. At such a distance they looked to be about the size of a man's head, when in reality Cassandra suspected they were easily four feet class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p  
p class="p7"Flexing her upper lip, unable to swallow back the sneer, Cassandra turned to the ambassador, "What of the greenery? The holly and trimmings? Is that not what the average theadosian expects for Satinalia?"/p  
p class="p7"Josephine shrugged, her legs bouncing her back and forth in her golden slippers. "It's grown rather stale for most. And this... It is spectacular what they managed to craft. Look," she pointed towards the back, near the Inquisitor's throne, "we even had a Fromari enchant a fountain. Every half hour it plays a song which the streams of water synch up to. Isn't that amazing?"/p  
p class="p7"While the puppy brown eyes would probably melt other spines, Cassandra's was stone, "I prefer the more subdued traditions." Her tone was ice cold, clearly focusing all the blame upon the class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p  
p class="p7"Always aware of a slipping diplomatic situation, Josephine lay a palm flat to her ruffled chest. "Is there...I'm getting the feeling you're not happy with me."/p  
p class="p7"Was it that obvious? She'd only been staring daggers since she entered the Great Hall and promptly dashed back to the far wall. "You waste my time asking for my input on decor and then use none of it," Cassandra growled./p  
p class="p7""I had merely inquired to gather thoughts. There were numerous ideas on the table," Josephine turned cold a moment, her shoulders squaring off as she and the Seeker both faced the dance floor. But that bred in hospitality refused to leave. Blinking a moment, Josephine turned to Cassandra, "We could bring in a tree if you like. Send the Iron Bull to collect it."/p  
p class="p7""No," Cassandra sneered, her arms crossing over her chest. She wished to be done with this entire idea already. There was work waiting for her in her loft instead of emthis./emspan class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p  
p class="p7"But the ambassador was not easily dissuaded. Sighing into her hair, Josephine turned to Cassandra, "I don't understand what it is you want."/p  
p class="p7""A kissing ball," a voice appeared into thin air just behind the shoulders of both women./p  
p class="p7"Cassandra's eyes shot open wide and she spun around to find Cole perched upon the wine cabinet. His shoe was firmly entrenched in a bucket while he plucked at a raspberry in his fingers. She tried to glare murder at him to get him to vanish, but the spirit wouldn't lift its head./p  
p class="p7""I'm sorry," Josephine turned from the seething Seeker to the naive spirit, "a what?"/p  
p class="p7""Kissing ball," Cole said, his hat lifting a moment. He'd stuck a tuft of holly upon the brim - or perhaps Varric did. Seemed the dwarf's class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p  
p class="p7""It's nothing," Cassandra inserted herself between the two, "a foolish old tradition that...the spirit doesn't know what it's speaking of. I want nothing of the sort."/p  
p class="p7""Yes you do," Cole said, his watery eyes and limp body sliding to the ground. "You've been thinking of it all day. 'Spinning, singing, sighing, suddenly silence. Glance to the heavens in warm arms, both smile at the ball above our heads - then lips locked in lust.'"/p  
p class="p7"The entire ground opened up under Cassandra's feet, her face shifting to beet red as she sputtered to find any way out of this mess. Stomp away. Leave Cole to flit about infecting other people and stealing their thoughts. Avoid Josephine for a few months. She had business to deal with out east and the new Seekers. She should head there instead. Anything but face up to this skin prickling embarrassment infesting her body./p  
p class="p7""You..." Cassandra cursed at Cole, but his droopy blue eyes only moistened more in her rage. "You don't know what I...what I'd..."/p  
p class="p7"Her anger shattered to an inconsolable spatter of vowels, Cassandra unable to find a way back from this. She was not, she did not. She'd only weighed the idea in her head when the ambassador first approached her. Found it charming and... Blighted void itself./p  
p class="p7"The ambassador patted a hand into Cassandra's arm, causing the Seeker to whip her head over. There was no wick for the anger to catch upon, the rage slithering to the floor in a wet plop as her stomach twisted into a knot. Only endless humiliation filled her body as Josephine smiled politely./p  
p class="p7""Perhaps next year we can look into adding this kissing ball. I'm certain the guests would enjoy such a tradition."/p  
p class="p7"Cassandra growled under her breath, chewing down her teeth in the process. Crawling into her bed in mortification was her only hope now. Never speaking to another soul, never letting another person into her life. Anything was better than this eternal torment./p  
p class="p7""Ah," Josephine found any excuse to slip away, but before she vanished back to her throngs - no doubt to delight Leliana with the tale of Cassandra's humiliation - she added, "It is a rather romantic idea."/p  
p class="p7"With that, the woman vanished, leaving Cassandra alone with the spirit. She folded her hand into a fist and turned back to the boy, who was prodding at one of the lower ornamentation balls and staring at his reflection. "Why did you do that?!"/p  
p class="p7""What?" Cole, the eternally befuddled, turned to her before he buffed his breath against the blue surface of the ball./p  
p class="p7""Say those things about me. Prod into my mind and..."/p  
p class="p7"His fingers paused, a smiley face emerging into the fog of his breath, "Tell the truth?"/p  
p class="p7""That wasn't the...there is no truth to tell!" she wanted to scream and rip Cole in half. A very un-festive party trick, no doubt./p  
p class="p7"The boy blinked a moment, "But you wanted it. Were crushed when you could not find it."/p  
p class="p7"Cassandra sneered, her armor trying to wall off the bleeding heart inside, "Cease reading my mind, spirit, or you shall not enjoy what occurs next."/p  
p class="p7"Buckling his lips a moment, Cole shrugged and said, "All right." He hopped off the bauble and began to saunter through the crowd. Before vanishing, he added, "I liked your party better. It had more cake."/p  
p class="p7"emDamn it all to the void!/em Cassandra massaged a hand into her forehead, weary in the very marrow of her bones. So she let her imagination loose for a bit. Wondered about how nice it would be on this first Satinalia after destroying Corypheus if she could enjoy it. Wished to have someone, for once, sweep her off her feet./p  
p class="p7"Behaved like a dithering lady wafting a fan in front of her face. Grew indignant when the world wouldn't behave exactly to her specifications. Once again be passed over in the back, ignored for the ones who knew how to play the game. She'd saved the Empire, rose to become the Right Hand of the Divine, helped form the Inquisition, finished Corypheus once and for all, but she was nothing compared to a woman in a tight dress who knew how to bat her eyelashes./p  
p class="p7"It was foolish to come in the first place. She belonged in the field, not on a dance floor. Her passions would always be for blood and duty, never...never anything of the heart./p  
p class="p7"Cassandra turned to place her drink down, her mind set on sending her back to her room above the armory. Even that would be empty by now, every man and woman dancing and carousing here at the party. At least she'd be afforded peace and solitude./p  
p class="p7"She moved to turn around, when a voice gently coughed, "Seeker Pentaghast?"span class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p  
p class="p7"Trailing the sound, Cassandra focused upon a familiar face swaddled in unfamiliar lace. There was a bit of velvet and other trimmings as well, but the outfit was so well tailored it took her a minute to place the owner. "Ser Barris?" she asked foolishly as if the man wouldn't know his own name./p  
p class="p7"He smiled at that and bowed his class="Apple-converted-space" /span/p  
p class="p7""In the flesh, so they say," he seemed nervous, shifting back and forth on his toes a moment. Perhaps it was the itchy clothing, or he needed to find the privy./p  
p class="p7""I had no idea the templars were here as well," Cassandra slipped back against the wine cabinet, her arms limply crossing her chest as she spoke to the man./p  
p class="p7""We only arrived a day ago," Barris bit into his lip and his cheeks turned red. Shifting out towards the floor, he shrugged, "No one wanted to miss this."/p  
p class="p7"Cassandra sighed to herself. All she wanted right now was to miss it. To forget she ever came would be better, but no reason to hope for the sky. "Was there...?" she asked, growing more aware of Ser Barris' uncertainty. His legs wobbled like jelly, a strange sight as any time she saw the man on the field he was solid as iron. "Did you want something?"/p  
p class="p7""Yes," he smiled wide, his eyes lighting up, before he blinked madly and drew a hand from the crest of his hair to the back of his head. "I, actually..." he coughed a moment, his eyes cinching up tight before he extended his hand to her. "I wanted to ask you to dance."/p  
p class="p7""You...?" her arms fell along with her jaw. She stared at the hand proffered to her and back to the man who was clearly nervous, "You wish to dance with me?"/p  
p class="p7""I do," he smiled, his teeth glinting in the candlelight, before his lips fell over them, "That is if you want to. I understand that there could be other matters that can require your attention, and if you are not of a mind to-"/p  
p class="p7"Running her hand over his palm, Cassandra locked her fingers tight around his. The stammering paused as Barris gulped. For the first time that night, a smile replaced her sneer. Looking into his eyes, she said truthfully, "I'd love to."/p 


	11. Chapter 11

Alistair finished stoking the fire, the pops and whorls entertaining him. He was about to put the poker back, when he heard a few wild claps break from behind. Glancing over his shoulder, he took in the small horde of children fighting for space on the royal rug.

It was somewhere in the dozen or so range, normally cause for terror to have so many in one place, but they were all stuffed full of roast duck and pickled chestnuts. With bellies overburdened from rich foods, and just enough sugared plums, or cherries, or whatever fruit they had around to keep 'em awake - the kids were ready for the next part.

"You like that?" Alistair asked, jabbing at the logs again. One hissed, its bark shredding as it tumbled to the stones. That deserved a few claps, some of the children inching closer. Okay, don't want any flambéed babies on Satinalia night. Tugging the screen back in place, he turned to gaze around at the adoring audience.

It was all wide eyes and sugar coated lips. Each of the babes were slipped into the same red and black plaid pajamas, the monotony of it making Alistair feel very over dressed. He plucked at the royal attire someone knotted and clasped around him, then frowned. Maybe he could get a set of those pjs if he asked nicely.

"We want the story," a little girl shouted. Her golden curls turned orange by the shifting firelight. Alistair smiled at her and she jammed her thumb in her mouth. In the other hand she clutched tight to a stuffed griffin. There were quite a few of them gifted this year, nearly all the children clinging to their newest toys.

Extending his hands wide, Alistair smiled, "All right. What is Satinalia without the story?" He tugged over one of the high backed chairs and moved to sit down in it.

Pausing, Alistair hefted the heavy crown off his head. He scrunched his nose up at the pathetic reflection - the man in it clearly unfit for such a thing. It was a wonder they didn't drag him out into the street, really. With a smile, he dropped it onto the head of the boy closest to him. Fingers coated in jams stumbled up to the crown, the kid smiling as Alistair fell into the chair.

From behind his back he pulled the book. Its pages were oversized, the font giant so anyone could read it, and there were some interesting illustrations done for each. They varied from more stylized, to fairytale, to hyper realistic. He wasn't certain who did them or when, but this was his favorite copy by far.

"The story," the first little girl began. She clapped her hands on her knees and started to rock back and forth. The others joined in, their tinny voices calling for the story.

Coughing into his fist, Alistair hefted up the book to show the drawing and began:

"'Twas the night before the siege, and all through the land,

Darkspawn were swarming, bloody swords in hand;

The creatures maimed, leaving none in their wake,

Their lust for torment could never be slaked.

The armies were scared, all trembling in their shoes,

Each head bent in prayer while fearing the news;

And there I stood, at the head of the crowd

Listening to the screams growing e'er loud."

He darted a finger to a drawing of a soldier with his head bent over in prayer. Far too close to be perspectively accurate was a hurlock's face. It seemed to be in pain, but the kind one suffers from having your genitals pressed by a brick. All of the children ooed and awed at it before Alistair turned the book back to continue.

"Their rot infested all, both home and friend,

What chance dare we have, thrust before the end?

All seemed lost, our doom certain as the sun,

When one stepped forward to get the job done."

The kids all gasped, their eyes widening even as one of the girls snatched the crown from the boy's head. She tried it on herself, the rim perched upon the edge of a pigtail. Coughing, Alistair drew back into the book. His heart pounded, the scent of darkspawn blood filling his nostrils. Damn thing would never go away.

"A set to her jaw, how her teeth clenched,

She dared to not let her heart fill with dread.

Striding through the ranks, helping them to cope.

For the first time we all felt it - hope.

Railing through the streets, we ran towards danger,

Brothers and sisters, none of us strangers.

Ogre's blood bubbled deep into the cobbles,

Her arm was steady, her heart never wobbled."

One of the kids shouted, "That's the hero!" before a dozen other tiny voices shushed him. But Alistair smiled wide at the crack. Yes, it was her, though she wasn't called that at the time. Neither of them were, just...wardens doing what wardens did. How times changed.

Shaking off the melancholy, Alistair threw on a smile and twisted the book back to the kids. There was a particularly good drawing of the Hero screaming her face off. He was really impressed with all the stink lines emanating from her head. Someone told him they were supposed to represent movement, but he remembered what they all smelled like while camping for a year. Baths were few and far between.

"When flying o'er our heads, wings beat the sky,

The dragon unleashed its fiery cry.

How the skin sizzled, the hair how it stank,

We all lost our nerve, if I'm being quite frank."

Gasps broke from the children, their eyes bulging as each mouthed the word "dragon." The latest to snatch up the crown was so shocked it plummeted from his fingers to the ground. That caused one of the nursemaids at the side to come dashing forward. She didn't yank the crown away, but placed it on the child's head for safe keeping.

"Yes," Alistair nodded, "scary times. Not for the faint of heart by any means." Not for any heart, but they got through it. They prevailed. Licking his thumb, he turned the page.

"But the Hero strode tall, refusing to bend,

She swore at Ostagar to see this to the end.

Lifting her head high, her bright eyes a cleanse;

Cupping her mouth she bellowed for her friends.

On Alistair, Zev, and Morrigan;

Leliana, Shale, and those with a plan,

Tonight the archdemon dies, the blight ends,

For Ferelden, to the void is where it rends."

All the kids shouted the names with him, in particular his own as if they found it funny. To think of that silly ol' King in a picture book, preposterous. They only made those about important people, and ducks. Very important ducks. Shifting higher in his chair, Alistair held the book out.

"Certain in her steps, her heart never in waver,

She turned towards Fort Drakon, our lifesaver.

Through the tow'r did we climb, monsters abound,

But the archdemon, it could not be found.

Upon the fort's roof, the Hero did stare,

Deep into the dragon's purplish glare.

Roaring to quake, three mages it roasted,

The dragon's prestige need not be boasted."

It wasn't heat but lightning that poured off of that thing, stinging the skin, turning his teeth to mush, and making everything smell like ash. How it'd swept over them, each beat of its massive wings nearly hurling them out of their shoes. Alistair did his very best to act brave, to try and save face, but when he spotted her he nearly lost all control.

She was grim, her cheeks wan. They fought the entire night up the tower, slaughtering hundreds of darkspawn, ogres, emissaries, and she didn't even blink. But with that giant lizard flying around breathing its purple lightning on them, she paused in terror. When she'd felt his eyes on her, she turned her head and the stupidest, most out of place smile lanced up her lips. With a shrug at him, she ran into the fray - Alistair quickly behind.

"Unmoored, unshaken, the Hero did charge,

Her head tipped back as the dragon grew large.

The blade bit deep into the dragon's scales,

I feared for a moment, what if this fails?"

"But it doesn't!" one of the kids shouted, needing to ruin the ending they all knew. The other children all shushed him again, some trying to whack into the boy with their stuffed griffins. Alistair waved a hand, attempting to get them to calm down and back into place.

"Come on, just a few more pages. We're getting to the best part," he insisted, watching as his crown circled somewhere near the back. He didn't really worry about it. If it was lost, oh no he'd no longer have to suffer a neck and ear ache from the damn thing. Such a shame.

Coughing into his fist, he turned the page and braced himself for the pain to rock his bones. This was one of the realistic pages, drawn to capture the moment her sword struck the archdemon. He had no idea what it looked like from the ground, being in the blast range and all, but he remembered the pain far too well.

"A fist hurled us back, bodies piled high;

I staggered up wondering, did she die?

Soldiers answered the cry with pain-filled moans.

Smoke curled around the dragon's stripped bones."

The kids were ensnared, all of them sitting on the edge of their pillows. Did she live? Did the mighty hero die along with her prey? What was the answer? Turning the page, Alistair smiled.

"Leaping through fog, I spied the Warden's face;

In the hero's story, she cinched her place."

A great slapping of tiny hands broke from his audience. He wanted to tell them the book wasn't over yet, but his tongue froze. Their eyes were wide in wonder, their heads high as if each of them was imagining their place amongst the heroes. As if each of them held the sword that slew an archdemon.

Alistair opened his mouth, about to read the last line, when a tiny body scurried towards his chair. The hands had to grip onto the back as the girl stood up on her tiptoes. With as much care as a 6 year old can manage, she placed the crown back upon Alistair's head. Nodding his thanks, he twisted the book around and read.

"Wiping off the blood she earned in the fight,

To darkspawn she cried, "Who wants some tonight?"

Every child formed the same fist Alistair did, waving it at imaginary darkspawn and threatening them. How they all scattered back into their holes, terrified of the one woman atop a tower challenging each to death. The book didn't talk about the after, the rebuilding, the funerals, the wondering what came next. This was a happy book with a happy ending, which the children all adored.

As he closed the cover, a few cried out, "Read it again!" He glanced back at the keepers and noticed quite a few stern looks. This was supposed to lull the children to sleep not get them riled up.

"Ah, how about tomorrow. Judging by the faces back there, I'm guessing it's past your bedtime. Want to be getting to sleep, lest Andraste finds out you were being naughty and steals your toys away." A few of the younger kids clutched tighter to their stuffed griffins, thumbs in place, but the older ones were catching wise to such a toothless threat.

Chuckling, the King rose out of the chair, his trick knee whining at the abuse. Ever since he fell upon it in the blast from the archdemon, it needed to be rested upon a pillow. After massaging into the offended kneecap, he bumped into one of the higher ranked nannies. Her arms were folded as she watched the lesser ones usher the children to trundle beds.

Soon there'd be dreams of sugar plums, lights, decorated trees, and swords stabbing dragons. Alistair turned from the heartwarming picture right into the folded eyebrows of the woman. "Yes?" he asked, trying to not fidget. Too many memories of his time in the templars roared back at him.

Not as if she could make him stand out in the rain with a bucket on his head reciting the chant of light. Right?

"Why that story?" she asked, her arms crossed right.

He twisted his beloved book around in his hands, "The kids like it."

"But it's Satinalia, a time for merriment. Shouldn't you read them something light and happy."

Alistair frowned a moment, "This is happy. We win, the darkspawn lose."

"It's rather violent for children," she chided.

"The world is rather violent to children," Alistair added back, causing her to purse her lips. Shit, it's the ruler against knuckles next. "I read it because if it weren't for this, this actual story, they," he waved his hands to the young crowd who'd never known the blight, would never have to, "wouldn't have a Satinalia to celebrate."

If not for one stubborn as hell woman striding across the country, building an army, and lunging at the archdemon with a shrug none of them would be around to celebrate anything. It was the happiest damn book he had in his library. The nanny remained less than pleased with his answer, but she scuttled off to assist with tucking the children to sleep.

Alistair's lungs filled with the air of hearth - of happy times, of golden memories, of silver promises. He never knew this kind of celebration as a boy, nor as a young man, which made him try extra hard to make certain as many children as he could had a good Satinalia. Walking towards the door, his hands drawing over the cover of the book, he paused.

"Happy Satinalia to all," he called back to the children. Their heads perked up a moment, nannies following suit. Raising his fist, Alistair shouted to the roof, "'Who wants some tonight?'"

Every child shouted back, their blood pumping with vigor. Three adult women glared at Alistair as if they intended to rip him limb from limb, but he'd already skipped off down the hall, his laugh echoing against the sword that slew an archdemon.


	12. Chapter 12

Darkness - in every story, in every myth centered at the creation of all, the tale begins the same. There was darkness. Then, one day, there wasn't.

All things must end, the question is who strikes the first match.

* * *

Deep in the bowels of the earth, further down than even the deeproads themselves, the trio of dwarves heard a sound. Skittering back and forth against the walls, it sounded like hundreds of feet racing down the roads. Their breath stopped, holding tight in straining lungs while the impenetrable black pressed into them.

By the darkness, nothing could be seen save a flicker of shadows against the lyrium's blue haze. Fear pummeled their hearts, the unholy sounds shredding apart what control they thought they possessed. Two wished to turn, to run from the path ahead, forget their mission and flee.

But the first stood tall, breath held as he listened deeper into the pit. Whatever was in there, whatever was coming - it would shape the world. The terror did not pass him by; no, he was as firmly entrenched as the others. But he could not run either.

Scraping a stone against the lyrium filled walls, a spark caught upon his oil soaked torch. Raw flame burst through the ink, ripping away the comforting bliss of denial and revealing to the dwarves that they were no longer alone in the deep.

The darkspawn had come.

* * *

 _We cannot succeed._ Shartan felt it in his bones, even as he dressed for morning battle, even as he stood silently beside Andraste while she prayed for the Maker's blessing. There was an unending army of powerful Imperium mages waiting to splinter their bones, shackle their wrists, and drag everyone back into submission.

There was not a chance in thedas. Below rested Minrathous, the capital city and jewel of the Imperium. Barricaded by more than stone and moat, spells the likes of which none could hope to break protected every slaver inside the city. Every magister who gleefully slit a throat for power, every citizen who turned away from the suffering left to die in the streets.

He was little more than a slave, same as most of their army, plucked from the fields and bonds by the most unlikeliest of hands. The tactics to fight came to him the way a song would to a bird, but even with his mind spilling out each ingenious battle plan, what hope could they have against such a force? They were few while the Imperium was legion.

"Shartan," a soft voice called from inside the tent.

His cheeks blushed whenever he heard it, how the mighty leader of a revolution could speak so sweetly when she was alone. Few believed it even now, what would history turn her into? Turn them all into?

"Yes?" he asked, blinking against the setting sun.

"Could you bring in a candle? I require more light to study this."

Nodding in absolute service, Shartan picked up a tiny candle formed from beeswax collected by his own freed children. After suckling fire from the torch, he watched as the tiny flame upon the wick danced. By the winds powerful lungs, it threatened to poof out. With a gentle hand, Shartan cupped the flame - securing it for both his lady and people.

* * *

Everyone was scared. She was terrified too, standing outside the walls of Denerim - a place she only left a few weeks hence - hearing the screams of dying citizens and the gleeful laugh of darkspawn. Darkness swept over the horizon, an unnatural smoke blotting out the sun. As its cruel fingers swept away the light, the army she amassed from nothing began to tremble.

Here it was, the end. The final hill upon which everything she fought for, everything she struggled for, rested. And she was scared.

Soldiers - men, women, elves, dwarves, people plucked from their lives and pressed into service. At the precipice every eye turned not towards their would-be King, nor their Arl. No, she could feel them, even through the darkness, turning to the small Warden who fell into this and knew only one way out.

"I know you're scared," the Warden shouted, her head lifting higher as she marched through the gaps between a line of mages. Their cowled heads bobbed in agreement, most having never left the tower until this day. Most not knowing if they'd ever return. "I know you're frightened, and do you want to know the truth?"

She paused ahead of the people, her army, "I'm frightened as well. I was terrified to fight at Ostagar, but I did." Her eyes drifted over to the future King, his jaw gritted for once instead of flapping. Alistair turned towards her and nodded once at the mention.

"I stormed Kinloch tower, took it back from the demons," she waved a hand towards the mages who began to shuffle, "even though I was certain I would die."

Pacing before her people, she continued, "Delving the deeproads to find a paragon, facing off against werewolves and a curse of the forest, challenging an ancient cult for the sacred ashes - there was rarely a moment when I was not terrified for my life or the lives of those important to me."

Her people, her companions who joined on this madness of their own volition for no good reason, all glanced over. They'd been the reason she succeeded. The arm, the shield, the shoulders, and backs she needed to make it this far. Just a little further and it will be done.

"Fear is not the enemy today," she shouted, "despair is. Abandonment, disillusion, accepting that we have already lost. Those are what we must fight against, those are what we cannot allow to fester."

A few agreements echoed through the ranks at that, people raising their fists, but not enough. She reached over towards one of the guards and picked up a torch. "Today we fight not just against the darkspawn," she continued while dipping the torch into a fire, "today we strike back at the darkness."

Lifting her burning torch high into the air, she waved it around to illuminate the sky buried under rotten smoke. "Today we bring light back into this world."

* * *

A mother tugged her child tighter to her chest, trying to smother out the whimpering cries. She barely breathed commands above her whispering voice, begging her baby to be silent. The ceiling above her creaked, armored boots bending the floorboards as the slavers stomped through the house. They were searching for a runaway slave, for an elf who had nowhere to go and every reason to try.

Please. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to stifle the tears inside. Please, don't cry.

Her babe couldn't understand the danger, all he knew was the cold, the hunger, and the dark. Her little one feared the dark more than anything, and that was where they had to hide lest the monsters find them.

A loud boom erupted right above her head, the mother jumping in terror as the slavers must have upended a wardrobe to the ground. They would ransack the place, leave no stone unturned until she was theirs again. No, until both of them were back in bondage.

Her baby fell silent at first, as shocked by the sound as she, but the noise must have stung his tiny ears. A mouth with only three teeth inside opened up, lips quivering as he tried to cry out to the world. As if his cries would be answered. As if those who found him would bring succor instead of pain.

Silent, please be quiet. Slipping down tighter to the dirt, her chest trying to stifle the cries, she opened up her mind to her child. Darkness pressed in around them, the terror unbending as her heart thundered in her chest. Her baby had to feel the fear inside his mother, the wet tears clinging to her tattered clothes.

She could not risk striking a candle, the light certain to draw death to them, but there was another way to draw back the darkness. Pressing her forehead against her baby's, she thought of a candle. Bright as a summer's day, its warm flame comforting cold bones. How it chased away the demons hidden in the shadows, how it brought succor to empty bellies and weary eyes. How it freed those forever chained in darkness.

Listen to the flame. She ignored the stomp of boots overhead, tried to not imagine her protectors selling her out. All she thought of was that candle biting back against despair.

Her child quieted against her breast.

* * *

Drawing a hand over his beard, Hawke grimaced as flecks of dried blood scattered to the ground. This was madness. Beyond, really. Who the void was he to think he could do any of this?

Champion? Ha. He fell into that, not really having much choice but to tell the Arishock where they could shove it. But this...?

Hundreds of robes lay crumpled in various heaps. Most had bodies in them, some sitting, others resting - a few were doing the final rest. They didn't know what to do with the corpses made of their friends and colleagues, but leaving them for the templars seemed cruel. So they pulled all the bodies into this backroom waiting like cornered animals for the butcher to come charging in with his cleaver.

What could he do? It was Maker sent he got anyone this far. It was his fault he pulled so many of his friends into this mess. They shouldn't be here, he shouldn't be here. This wasn't his fight.

They were never his fights.

But they were. He flinched, his eyes wandering over not to the mages but the people inside the robes. People who'd been silently screaming for years, doing everything in their power to find a life worth living without sacrificing it in the process. When that became impossible, when the life they suffered grew darker than the grave, what came next?

A mage fell beside him, a scrawny thing more knees and elbows than anything else. The kid looked terrified, but also resigned. She already gave up. Most of them had. Templars controlled mages, it was as written in the stones of the world as grass grows up and rocks fall down.

Her fingers flexed and a spark of flame erupted on one hand. As if a routine, she bounced one spark to the next hand, catching the flame on the tips of her fingers before returning it. Hawke watched it a moment, the small fire - little bigger than a candle's hearth - drawing him in deeper.

Dipping into his mana, Hawke held his fingers out towards hers. She blinked at the near touch, tears shedding off her lashes as she honed in on the mage that was never one of theirs. "Please," he said, his fingers tenting up as if they held a small wick.

With a slow nod, she passed her fireball onto him, careful to make certain it didn't singe. Hawke caught it on his fingers and watched as the one small flame caught upon the power burning inside his veins. Hefting the flame high, he stood up to weary feet.

"You're tired," he said, feeling the heads begin to turn to him, "we're all tired. Sick and tired of what this world has done to us. Ripped us apart, pitted people against people, kicked away our only legs to stand on."

His hand lifted higher, the flame practically scraping near the tall ceiling. That drew a lot more eyes to it. "They fear our anger, which they should. It burns inside of us like an unquenchable force. With it we can wipe them all out, scatter the templars, the chantry, every force that dare stand in our way."

He closed his eyes, the fire falling fast until it was little more than a single flame dancing in his fingers. "But we cannot sustain such rage. Not forever. Not enough to change things, properly. The templars are coming, they will try to kill us. More than likely will kill us."

Throats swallowed hard, the eyes sinking in deeper at the thought. They knew their lives were forfeit the minute the Rite was called for. Like a piece of paper caught in the wind. It had no say in where it went, what it saw, whether it rotted away in water or burned in flames. The mages too never had a choice in their life from the moment of birth. That was going to change.

Extending his hand, Hawke stepped towards the first in a line of mages. The boy eyed up the flame a moment before he too folded his mana out. The fire caught, twisting up in a spiral as Hawke spoke, "There is another fire inside of us, one that they fear, that tyrants and sycophants alike try to stamp out. Though it may be small, it is far more powerful and sustaining than anger. And we must pass it on."

He waved his palm, encouraging the boy to turn to his neighbor. The light caught upon the new fingertips, then two more. Soon it was erupting from one person to the next. Even his companions were joining in. Varric yanked out one of his crossbow bolts and held it into the mage flames. By the red and orange firelight, the dwarf smiled at him. It was a good story moment.

"Thedas will not forget this day. Thedas will not forget us. Even if we fall, even if we fail..." Hawke gulped a moment at that. He wanted to lay down his life as much as the other mages wished to, but he wasn't going to run away either. Not anymore. "The world will change. And our fire will herald the new dawn."

The mages didn't clap, but they cheered by lifting their flames high into the air. Even his companions followed suit, Varric, Isabela, and Aveline all hefting their makeshift torches up. Hawke had nothing left to him now, his fortune and title certain to be taken, his life on a blade's edge. He glanced down at the tiny flame still dancing on his fingers. Nothing at all, except hope.

* * *

Warm blood dribbled down his forearm, slicking up the grip upon his sword. He fell into the crimson glare by fading firelight, entranced for a moment and in awe as if it could not be his. Pain thundered through his body, throwing into sharp contrast that this was real and he...he was the only hope they had left.

Glancing over his shoulder, the templar watched the three mages clustered around the sacred fire. They held hands, spells dribbling from their lips while demons howled around them. Gripping tighter to his broadsword, he stared through the gap in their defenses - a shattered section of toppled bookcases. That was where the demons would come, and judging by the screams shattering the air it would be soon.

"Tell me you have the spell ready," the templar shouted back to them.

"We know it, Ser," one of the mages he rescued answered. Instead of certainty in the voice, it wobbled. The templar turned to look back waiting for the bad news. "But we don't have the mana to cast it, not with only three of us."

The mage's eyes drifted over to the fourth they'd pulled into the sanctuary, blood spurting from his neck as they ran. Demon claws caught him just before they made their escape. This was the last stance, their only hope to freedom. The templar bit into his lip. To think, if he'd been one second quicker they'd have stood a chance. Now...?

Two of the mages held hands, their legs trembling as they weighed the truth of the fight. The last stared defiantly towards him. She did not intend to go down without trying, and neither would he.

"Do what you can," he ordered, spinning around to face the oncoming demons.

"But...the mana. Without enough power it will not purge the chateau. We will all..."

He cut off the mage, "Cast the spell," his cold blue eyes whipped back a moment as he finished, "and pray for a miracle."

The mages heads bobbed, their fingers slicing the fade into this world as their lips dripped arcane words. Turning towards the shadows beyond the firelight, he let his eyes close a moment as his heart called to the Maker. Guide these men and women, protect them, as they are your children. Andraste, preserve them should I fall.

Cracking erupted outside of the boundaries of safety. Breath caught in his lungs, freezing solid as one of the demons drifted closer. Swinging his sword into position, the templar watched as the despair demon twisted its coiled fingers up. It was about to launch a ball of ice when the monster slid too close to a trap.

Fire pierced the frozen darkness, lancing apart the robes and sending the creature into the night. Perhaps they stood a chance. Perhaps they could...

All color drained from his eyes as the firelight of the burning demon revealed five, ten, twenty more cowled hoods floating in the great hall. There was no chance he could defeat them all. Hearing a chirp from behind, the templar took in the three mages. They too were bloodied and beaten, but they stood their ground. No doubt they saw the multitude as well, calculated the odds, and came to the same conclusion.

They were going to die.

"Stand closer to the fire," he ordered, "it's harder for their ice to strike through it."

"What of you?" the mages asked even while doing as commanded.

"I..." he licked his chapped lips, the frozen air sucking all moisture out until it tasted of ancient tomes. "My duty is to protect you until my dying breath."

The unending horde advanced, hands twisting as the black robes flew through the darkness. He braced himself, waiting for the ice to strike. There was little left inside of his body or mind to counteract it, but his form could act as a shield for a time. It'd give them minutes at best.

Ice burst from the ground, spikes shattering in the dry air. He swung his sword wide, striking twice into the attack but missing the demons. They skittered away, a haunting laugh reverberating under the cowls. His arm was slowing, too much blood lost in the last attack. He had one more swing before it would falter. One more attack before he was gone.

Staring through the darkness, the templar's eyes filled with the blue fury unleashing from the tips of three despair demons. He opened his mouth, prepared to shout the Chant of Light with his dying breath, when power hurled him forward. It burst out of the puny fire behind, flames licking out of the very air itself. As each shot over his head, they lanced through the chests of the despair demons.

When one exploded in a shower of light, the fire caught upon the next. It was a display of explosions, every despair demon that circled them erupting into a flaming end. Light filled what had once been dark - the wooden structures of the chateau burning with the dead embers of the demons.

"How...?" he turned on his heel, "You said you didn't have the mana."

"We didn't," the lead mage answered, his eyes wide as he turned to the woman.

She took a step towards the templar, a serene smile on her face. Before making it another, her body began to collapse. He dashed forward, the sword crumpling to the ground as he caught her. Crimson gushed out of her slit arms, pooling on the floor.

"What did you do?" the templar cried, her body growing heavier as the last of her blood drained onto the ground.

With a soft breath, she whispered, "A miracle."

* * *

Strange it should fall to him. Strange how any of it fell to him. A year later and the Inquisitor, once a no one from parts of thedas people rarely cared about, stood upon the ruins of Haven. None came to rebuild, the temple lost, the town abandoned, but the people never forgot.

It was as burned into the geography of thedas as the mountains and seas. Every foot that crossed it, every hand that laid a stone upon it may fade from memory, turn to ash on the wind, but the ideals established here would never pass. Not as long as he could stand.

He glanced back towards the chantry - now a pile of rubble, only a few bricks poking out of the snowy terrain. Below him were the people. Dwarves, elves, chantry, Fereldens, Orlesians. Those who fought to end Corypheus, those who didn't. Those who lost loved ones to the fires, those who came to see the ceremony. The only connection between them all was one fiber, one small thread that if plucked right could weave a tapestry.

If not, everything he accomplished in that year would unravel.

Tipping his head down, the Inquisitor summoned a breath in his lungs. Standing in the bones of those who came before he could smell the dragon's rot, taste the unholy flesh of the first darkspawn. It rattled him, but it no longer scared him.

"We stand here today, the people of thedas, not only to honor those who were lost at the battle of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Nor to merely mourn those who were cut down by Corypheus at Haven."

His fingers reached out for a candle left laying upon the table. There were boxes of them waiting to be passed out to the masses. Glancing to the sides, he signaled the two assistants to begin the preparations. As the candles moved down the lines, each hand picking one up because the person before did, the Inquisitor spoke.

"We are born into this world without choice. It is not asked of us if we want this life given to us, but unto each of us is a singular choice given."

Hefting up a match made specially by Dagna, the Inquisitor struck it quickly against the table. Purple fire burst from the end, strong enough to draw every eye even from the back of the crowd. As he placed the fire to the candle, it transformed to typical orange and red. Wafting the burning end of the match to smoke, the Inquisitor moved towards his people.

"What do we do with the choice before us? Life is not easy," he paused and a snicker lifted up his cheek, "as I am a firm example of." That brought a few chuckles from the crowd. "We fear, we hunger, we despair, we hate, we fall..."

His eyes raised up, trying to bat away the tears in his heart for those whom he had to send into battle knowing they'd never return. "But more than that we care," the Inquisitor paced back and forth over the stones of the outcropping, "we give, we laugh, we share, we love..."

At that he looked up, his cheeks stilling a moment as he closed his eyes, "We hope. That is what is put before us when we come into this world. Unto each of us is given a candle. On its own it is little more than a lukewarm lump of wax, but when we put fire in its belly..."

Twisting the candle, the magic fire erupted from the once normal looking wick. Purple and red stars burned in a ten foot radius off of the end. They coated the inky sky, causing all the people around him to ooh and aah. He smiled a moment at the simplicity of it all.

"The darkness is not eternal, no matter what the whispers tell you. We carry inside of us the fire to beat it back. Sometimes we cannot do it alone," he paused and snickered. "Rarely can one do it alone. So it is up to you, to each and every one of you, every breathing body born on this dirt."

The Inquisitor extended not the candle forward but his hand. "Do you choose to take the match to strike the candle and let it burn bright? Do you let it rot unused and forgotten? Or, do you snuff out the candle of others leaving only a puff of smoke to outline the encroaching dark?"

Placing the candle near his lips, he breathed hard. Smoke erupted off of the small wick, the loss of light causing all to gasp. A few began to whisper, the fear already taking hold mere seconds in the dark. Hope was a fragile substance, its absence felt immediately. But even in the tiniest amount, it could sustain a person well beyond their years.

With a flick of his fingers, a waifish yellow light snapped off a flint. It took a few more tries before the tamer and more mundane flame finally caught upon the candle. The Inquisitor stepped near the closest person in the line.

They came here because this was where it all could have ended. They remembered because they didn't stop fighting. They won because they had to.

Holding out his palm, the used flint waiting for another's hands, the Inquisitor asked both the man and every person around him, "Which do you choose, the eternal darkness of the void or the light of hope?"

It can vanish in a breath. It can last for a thousand years. It can sustain an army. It can soothe a child. It burns bright within the weakest heart, and fades in the stoutest. It can be struck by any hand and passed to those who need it most. Without it, we are nothing but pillars of wax waiting in the dark. With it, we are the light that transforms the world into a place worth living for.

Which do you choose? Moulder in the dark, or strike the match and see what the light reveals?


End file.
